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REJOINDER 



TO 



MR. BANCROFT'S HISTORICAL ESSAY 



ON 



PRESIDENT REE D. 



BY 



WILLIAM B. REED. 




'^ Philadelphia: 

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 

Br Wm. p. Kildake, 736 Sansom Street, 

1867. 



E50T. 



Kntored, accoiding to the Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 

By WILLIAM B. REED, 

in tLf Clerk's Offiie of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



Mr. Bancroft has renewed and extended his attack 
on the memory of President Reed in what he calls an 
" Historical Essay." It is written in a temper and style 
so defiant of scholarly and gentlemanly propriety that 
I am compelled in rejoinder to adopt a less measured 
tone than I did in my publication of last February.'-' 
Self-resped: and a sense of responsibility to the tribunal 
of literary opinion, never tolerant of vehemence and per- 
sonality, prevent me from descending to the level to 
which Mr. Bancroft invites me, but knowing his 
" Rssay," to be untruthful and in every sense dishonest, 
and that I am able to show it to be so, my duty to the 
cause of historical truth would not be discharged were I 
to soften words of exposure and just rebuke. 

In my " Reply," so far as it related to Mr. Bancroft, 
I made certain specific charges which I now re-state : 

First. That, in citing a letter from Mr. Reed to Robert 
Morris, of the i8th of July, 1776, on the mission of 



'*' " President Reed, of Pennsylvania. A reply to Mr. George Ban- 
croft, and others. February, A. D. 1867." 



Lord Howe, he not onlv misrepresented its purport but 
mutilated its words. 

On this direct charge, Mr. Bancroft is silent. 
There is not a word in the " Essay " about it, 1 mean 
as to the charge of misrepresentation and mutilation. 
He speaks of the letter, but not in the connexion in « 
which I presented it. 

Second. In saying that Mr. Reed 'deserted to sate 
quarters within the enemy's lines at Burlington' on the 
morning of the 25th of December 1776, Mr. Bancroft 
said what is not true. 

To this, he makes no reply except by a modified sug- 
gestion that Burlington was ' within the cordon of the 
posts established bv the British.' My knowledge of 
such matters does not enable me to say whether ' the 
enemies' lines' and 'the cordon of posts ' mean techni- 
cally the same thing, but, admitting that they do, the 
statement is groundless. The historical materiak in 
Mr. Bancroft's possession which he so ostentatiously 
produces when they can be used in defamation show 
that Burlington at no time, from the 20th to the 26th 
of December when the Hessians retreated, was within 
' the enemies' lines' or ' the cordon ot their posts.' The 
' Diary ' is decisive of this. On the 20th, the Hessian 
advance was at Crosswicks, and Griffin was, and by the 
enemy was kiiown to be, at Mount Holly seven miles 
from Burlington. On the 2ist, Donop was at the 



3 

Black Horse, and records in his diary (if it be his): 
" He expedled, with longing the arrival of the battalion 
of Koehler with the heavy artillery, because, before that, 
Burlington could not be occupied on account of the gun- 
boats in the neighbourhood, and Mount Holly could 
not be held on account of the hills towards Moorestown 
&c." On the 22d, Griffin was still at Mount Holly. 
On this or the next day, he retreated and Uonop occu- 
pied the village for the first time. On the 24th he was 
there ; on the 25th he sent a flag of truce to Burlington, 
as an enemy's post, and remained at Mount Holly till 
the news from Trenton reached him, never going an inch 
nearer Burlington. Yet Mr. Bancroft perseveres in his 
calumny ! 

Third. In saying that Mr. Reed's letter to Washing- 
ton of the 22d December, 1776, was written in order to 
be produced as evidence in his own favour afterwards, 
Mr, Bancroft said what he knew was not true. 

On this point he makes an attempt at defence which 
1 give in his own words : 

" We know " says he " that (Reed) certainly did (keep a copy 
of this letter) for Gordon in his history quotes from it the skill- 
fully selected passages that might serve to glorify Reed. From 
whom did Gordon get the extract ? From Washington or from 
Reed himself? We have it under Washington's own hand that 
he refused to Gordon access to his papers ; then it follows that 
Gordon, who during the war of the Revolution collected papers 
on all sides, obtained it from Joseph Reed himself, though his 



work was not printed till after Reed's death. So then Gordon's 
story of Reed's suggestion of the affair of Trenton is traced to 
none other than to Joseph Reed." 

There is not the least authority tor such a statement. 
On this point, there is abundant evidence, negative and 
positive, perfeftly well known to Mr. Bancroft. No 
trace of intimacy or of relations of any kind between 
Gordon and Mr. Reed can be found. Gordon was in 
Vira;inia, rummaging among Gates' papers in 178 1, but 
had no acquaintance with the President of Pennsylvania.'" 
Fie was at work on his history in August 1785, and then 
Mr. Reed was in his grave. The few references to 
Reed in his History show that Gordon was no friend, 
but belonged to the school which was always harping on 
the Adjutant General's hostility to Eastern men."j" 

On the other hand, with General Washington, during 
and subsequent to the war, Gordon was on terms of ex- 
treme friendliness, and Mr. Bancroft not only has no 
authority for the broad assertion that access to the 
Washington papers was refused, but he knows that it 
was not so. The refusal, such as it was, was limited to 
public papers, for, in 1785, Washin2;ton sent to Gordon 

''' Gordon, Vol. 3, p. 59. Vol. 4, p. 436. 

"j' " No small animosity," he savs, "prevailed in 1776 between the 
troops of the Northern and Southern States, occasioned by general and 
illiberal refledlions freely dealt out at Head-quarters. It was not coun- 
tenanced by the Commander-in-Chief, but the Adjutant General assidu- 
ously endeavoured to make and promote it." — Vol. ii., pp. 324, 327. 



private documents as well as a statement of his own 
reminiscences relative to Fort Washington. Later in the 
same year, he sent him memoranda for history. In 1788 
Washington expressed a deep interest in the ' History* 
then going to the press, and in Mr. Sparks' "Letters to 
Washington " is one from Gordon, in which he speaks 
of having been at Mount Vernon after the war and 
hav'ino- read and examined Washington's revolutionary 
manuscripts, among which was, and there Mr. Sparks 
tound it nearly half a century afterwards, Mr. Reed's 
letter of the 22d December, 1776."-' Gordon often gives 
extracts from private letters which he could have obtained 
only from Washington. In his Preface he says "I 
made known my design ot compiling this history to the 
late commander-in-chief of the American army ; and 
meeting with the desired encouragement from him I 
applied myselt to the procurino; of the best materials 
whether oral, written, or printed." "I was indulged" 
he adds, " by the late Generals Washington, Gates, 
Greene, Lincoln and Otho Williams, with a liberal ex- 
amination of their papers both of a public and a more 
private nature." In the Monthly Magazine for July, 
1800, is a communication from Gordon in these words : 

To THK F^DITOR OF THE MoNTHLV MaGAZINE. 

The following are extracts from letters of the late General 

* Sparks' Writings of Washington, Vol. ix, pp. 28, 100, 121, 295, 
467. Mr. Reed's letter of 22d Dec. '76 is in Vol. iv., p. 541. 
Letters to Washington, Vol. iv., p. 436. 



Washington, to whose papers 1 had free aecess, when residing 
at his house for weeks, while procuring materials for the History 
of the American Revolution ; and of some written to myself. 

Yours, 

W. Gordon. 

Knowing all this perfectly well, Mr. Bancroft asserts 
that Washington refused access to his papers, and that, 
therefore, Mr. Reed must have furnished a copy to 
Gordon ; although, in 1782, Reed wrote to Washington, 
that, while he recolleded such a letter, he had it not. 

Fourth. Mr. Bancroft grossly misrepresented the 
fads when he said that Mr, Reed withdrew his resig- 
nation as Adjutant General, in consequence of "a cold 
rebuke from Washington." 

To this he replies, that, the " rebuke" was contained 
in Washington's letter of the 30th November, 1776, 
inclosmg Lee's. I have no objection to re-produce this 
letter, often as it has been in print, and I beg for it the 
reader's closest scrutiny. Where is there one word of 
" rebuke," as to resignation ? where is the semblance of 
anything but regret at the Lee correspondence 1 (of which 
I shall speak hereafter) where is the reproof for unful- 
filled duty ? 

Brunrucick^Novembcr 30, 1776 
" Dear Sir : — The inclosed was put into my hands by an ex- 
press from the White Plains. Having no idea of its being a 
private letter, much less suspecting the tendencv of the cor- 
respondence, I opened it, as I had done all other letters to you 



7 

from the same place and Pcekskill, upon the business of your 
office, as I conceived and found them to be. 

"This, as it is truth, must be my excuse for seeing the 
contents of a letter, which neither incHnation nor intention 
would have prompted me to. 

"I thank you for the trouble and fatigue you have undergone 
in your journey to Burlington, and sincerelv wish that your labors 
may be crowned with the desired success. My best respects to 
Mrs. Reed. 

" I am, dear sir, your most obedient servant, 

George \Vashington. 

The " Dear Sir," twice repeated, and, " mv best 
respects to Mrs. Reed," are hardly consonant with " cold 
and cutting rebuke." This is another of Mr. Bancroft's 
defamatory tid:ions, and, in exposing it anew, I pause 
incidentally to show the disingenuousness by which, in 
his " Essav," he tries to prop up this patent perv^ersion. 

"Others" says he " have called this a cold and cut- 
ting rebuke." I was, at first, at a loss to imagine who 
the " others" were ; for, in a very thorough and exhaust- 
ive study of this subject, I had no recollection of such a 
word as " rebuke," being applied by any accredited 
writer. At last I discovered to whom Mr. Bancroft so 
triumphantly alludes. In the "General Index" to Irv- 
ing's Life of Washington, prepared, no doubt, by some 
clerk, under the title " Reed," is this : " Rebuke from 
Washington, Vol. II, p. 443," but the reader will find, 
on reference to Mr. Irving's text, that, although there 
is a condemnation of the Lee correspondence, of which 



I do not at all complain, the word, "rebuke," does not 
occur, nor is the idea suggested : this was reserved for 
Mr. Bancroft's perverse ingenuity, his tendency to darken 
everything; a disposition wholly alien to Washington 
Irvinej's gentle, tolerant nature. I shall have occasion, 
in another connexion, to refer to this matter of the re- 
signation ; it is noted here in a recapitulation of the 
charges I made against Mr. Bancroft, and which he has 
failed to meet. 

Fifth. The last of the specifications which I made, 
was as to the manipulation of the Hessian Diary. 

The time is not* distant, when students will think 
with amazement, of Mr. Bancroft's experiment on the 
credulity of his readers, in this matter of the Hessian 
diary. In order to prove an American officer ot high 
rank guilty of treason, for taking a protection was 
treason, he uses the fragment of a hostile diary, writ- 
ten in verv perplexed German by some unknown per- 
son, who, without understanding one word of English, 
records what he imagines, and .what is reported to 
him to have been said when he was not present ; and re- 
cords it, too, in language so perplexed, if not ungram- 
matical, as to make interpretation of the commonest 
phrases doubtful; and says he does not believe it himseU. 
Such, literally, is what Mr. Bancroft has attempted; 
knowing all the while, and, if I am not mis-informed, 
havino; said so, that Colonel Reed never took a pro- 



9 

ted:ion, nor dreamed of doing so. Without an apparent 
scruple, he embodies this, as truth, in History; mutila- 
ting it, as I have shown, to suit his own purposes. 
There is no form of moderate words with which to 
describe such utter want of common fairness; so gross 
an outrage on the integrity of letters. 

As to this there can be no mistake. My charge was, 
not that Mr. Bancroft made a mis-translation of the 
Diary, for he gave none; nor that, as he now imagines, 
he printed the offensive passage in a note and not in the 
text; but, I averred and I re-assert, that in a quotation 
he mutilated a sentence, giving as truth the part which 
was false, and suppressing the context which showed the 
writer thought it was false. Here is the passage, the 
translation corrected according to Mr. Bancroft's notion; 
why, again I ask, were the italicised words suppressed, 
which are given in English and German.? 

" Die Nachrichten vom Felnde " The reports about the enemy 

w'dren so verzuorreji^ dass er fast luere so confused that he ivould 

keine mehr anhoren moge. In- not listen any more to them, 

dessen sollten am lC)th ^hujus^ Nevertheless^ he luould report 

wie er %u Mount Holly gewesen^ that it luas reported to him that 

wUrklich 1000 iiber Haddonfield during his stay at Mount Holly 

und 700 Uber Moorestoiun in on the igth inst.^ 1 000 ?nen^ 

Jnmarsch gegen Mount Holly via Haddonfield and 700 via 

geiuesen sein urn die beiden Bat- Moorestoiun^ had been marching 

tail: %u Black Horse %u atta- against Mount Holly for the 

quiren. Der Gen. Mijfiin solle purpose of attacking the two bat- 

wiirklich mit eine?n Corps auf talions at the Black Horse., 

der route nach Moorestoiun bis [that) General Mifflin had ad- 



lO 



an die 3 Meilen von Mount vanced with one corps on the 

Holly befindliche Briicke vorger- route leading to Moorestown to 

iickt sein^ aber nichts weiteres the bridge three miles from 

nnter nommen^ als diese Briicke Mount Holly ^ but had done no- 

gdnzlich %u ruiniren. '' Der thing except to destroy the bridge 

Oberst Reed, der neullch eine entirely ; {that) the Colonel 

protection erhalten, seye dem Reed, who recently received a 

General Mifflin entgegen ge- protedion, had come to meet 

kommen, und habe demselben General Mifflin and had de- 

declarirt, dass er nicht geson- clared that he did not intend 



nen sey weiteres zu dienen, 
worauf ihm Mifflin sehr hart 
begegnete und ihn sogar einen 
dem Rascal geheissen habe." 



any longer to serve ; whereupon 
Mifflin is said to have treated 
him very harshly and even to 
have called him a damned 



If there is any explanation of this in the " Essay," 
I have not been able to find it. Nothing is discussed 
but a question of mis-translation; whether the Diary 
should read, "Colonel Reed having taken a protection," 
or, "Colonel Reed, who took a protection;" or another, 
which I did not raise: why the quotation was not put in 
the text, — but not a word as to the reason for misleading 
the reader, by suppressing a material, in fact essential, 
part of the context. When, in my " Reply," I said, 
that words were wanting to express my sense of this 
literary enormity, I thought I used language so ap- 
propriate and so strong, as to arouse any latent sense of 
shame in Mr. Bancroft's breast. I have failed, however, 
and he aftually, in his " Essay," sinks to the lower level 
of makifig it a matter almost of jocularity, that the Ger- 



1 1 



man officers at their camp-fires amused themselves with 
stories of "Reed's treachery and his having obtained a 
protedlion, and of Mifflin's enmity."''' No doubt, the 
Hessian camps were resonant with rumours in disparage- 
ment of American patriots. Mount Holly was the 
centre of a neighbourhood where the Odells and Law- 
rences (whose descendants, in this our day, are busy in 
kindred defamation) and others, were at work in the 
manufadlure of slanderous gossip. It was gossip which 
Count Donop, a brave and apparently generous man, 
refused to "listen to." It was noted, probably, by one 
of his clerks, with an expression of incredulity; and 
the record of discredited slander has survived, to be 
dressed up and manipulated by Mr. Bancroft ! 

To this he pleads guilty. 

Having shown that, in no instance has Mr. Bancroft 
met the specific charges as to inaccuracy and untruthful- 
ness, I -might, in professional language, here rest 
my case; but, a determination, so far as in me lies, to 
put an end to this sort of defamation, and to make an 
example of one who writes history so dishonestly, induces 
me to go further, and to meet Mr. Bancroft on the 
ground to which he challenges me : ^President Reed's 
merits as a patriot from the beginning to the end.' Let 
the reader bear in mind, the initiation of all this is no 
work of mine. 

* Essay p. 28, 



12 



Mr. Bancroft's Essay is a review of Mr. Reed's life 
of forty-three years (for it was a short as well as an 
eventful career) from his birth at Trenton, to his death 
"a private citizen" in Philadelphia. In this review, 
every ad: without exception is censured; and no good 
motive or impulse is conceded. Mr. Bancroft even * 
stoops to attack Mr. Reed's private charader, as to 
which, until this "Essay" appeared, no whisper of 
reproach had ever been uttered; and while he was coining 
or burnishing his words of reproach, there lay before him 
the record of Mr. Reed's life, illustrated by private 
correspondence, showing him to have been (aside from 
all question of public merit) a kind and gentle and 
affeftionate son and brother and husband and father. 

"Complaints are made," says a writer who is alluded 
to in Mr. Bancroft's 'Essay,' "and sometimes with 
justice, of the licentiousness of writers of this day; but 
modern libellers are mild, candid and cautious, compared 
with those of the Augustan age of English literature, 
when engaged in political controversy. Private charader, 
which is now almost invariably respeded, was then at- 
tacked with unfeeling exaggeration of what was true, and 
with unmixed inventions of malignant falsehood.""' 

Mr. Bancroft, in his Essay on Mr. Reed, has gone 
back to the "Augustan" models, although, in his 
scrutiny he finds but one blemish, professional " rapacity 

* Lord Campbell, " Lives of the Chancellors." 



»3 

and avarice," for which, Mr. Reed dying a poor man, 
leaving to his five motherless children little beside his 
good name, he cites as authority a personal enemy, 
General Cadwalader ; and something purporting to have 
come from the British commander-in-chief, Sir Guy 
Carleton, who, in view of a contribution to the 
treasures of gossip, is described as 'a man of great mod- 
eration and candour.' I re-produce this passage from 
the ' Essay ' of Mr. Bancroft, who is never so content- 
ed as when quoting from German, or French, or English 
defamation of his own countrymen. 

Thus, Bancroft says Sir Guy Carleton reports of Mr. 
Reed :— 

"Mr. Joseph Reed is a native of New Jersey; his parents 
were persons in the middle state of life; he received a good ed- 
ucation, and, before the commencement of the present war, prac- 
tised law in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, and was es- 
teemed eminent in his profession. The public papers will con- 
vey to vou a better idea of this person than anything I can say 
in respect to his character as a statesman. In his pri\ate char- 
acter he is a man of polite address, a good fluency of speech, 
exceedingly artful, much attached to his interest, and ambitious 
of being respedled as a great man. He is possessed of some good 
qualities, but his avarice casts a shade over them. This failing 
has so great an ascendency over him, that he does not blush to 
let his own brother go through the streets of Philadelphia sawino; 
wood, and doing common labor round the docks." — In Sir Guv 
Carleton' s No. 6o, of 15th March, 1783. 

Reading this as genuine, one smiles at the trash which, 
eighty years ago, was written to great Governments, its 



singular preservation, when so much that is really valu- 
able has faded away, and the mischievous use which may 
be made of a trifling slander thus embalmed. The 
British Commander-in-Chief at the end of a great war 
writing home about an individual enemy's private failings 
and his ' brother sawing wood around the docks,' and a 
grave Historian cherishing the wretched gossip in his 
' note book ' and using it in literary controversy ! 

But the reader will be astonished to find what the 
truth is with regard to this paper. Mr. Bancroft un- 
questionably conveys the idea — in fact distinftly says 
that he cites a letter from Sir Guy Carleton. At page 
64 he gives its very words as " Sir Guy Carleton's No. 
60." At page 48 he speaks of " The account sent home 
by Sir Guy Carleton who was a man of great moderation 
and candour." On the next page (49), he refers to "the 
accounts sent by Carleton " — and speaks of a quotation 
as " in the letters of Sir Guy Carleton to the Secretary 
of State, March 15 and April 13, 1783." 

Thanks to the good offices of friends in Great Britain, 
I have procured a copy of these documents from the 
Public Record office. They are before me as I write. 
They are open to the inspection of any one who desires 
to examine them ; and they are not letters of Sir Guy 
Carleton, but Reports made by a nameless spy or paid 
informer in the City of Philadelphia. The temptation 
to print them in extenso is very great, but to do so would 



15 

be to repeat the wrong Mr. Bancroft has done and give 
pain to the innocent living who have taken no part in 
these controversies. They contain nothing but frivolous 
and malignant gossip, and are utterly worthless — and 
Mr. Bancroft, in conveying the idea that this trash was 
written by Sir Guy Carleton or was ' Sir Guy Carleton's' 
in any sense said what he knew was not true. It is a 
gross imposition.'^' 

Generally the stories of spies and detectives are un- 
trustworthy, and in this case, the report as to Mr. Reed 
is an absolute fidion. He had two brothers, neither 
resident of Philadelphia. The elder, Mr. Bowes Reed 
lived in Burlington, and was a man of easy fortune. The 
following letter taken from private correspondence, and 
never before printed simply because it relates to family 
matters which Mr. Bancroft and Sir Guy Carleton's 
emissary have now dignified, will show Mr. Reed's actual 
relations to his other brother. 



* A gentleman in England, whose name I withhold simply because I 
have no wish or right to involve him in my controversies, writes to me, 
after a careful examination of these records, "The facts and extracts 
I give you seem to lead directly to the conclusion that the papers in 
question do not profess to contain the opinions of Sir Guy Carleton, 
but those of some person paid to procure and send him intelligence 
from the quarters of the revolted colonists, — a class of persons whose 
statements and opinions, the world at large does not view with much 
respeft. * * * Clearly, none of these papers were written by Sir Guy 
Carleton." — MS. Letter, London, August jotli, 1867. 



i6 

Mr. Reed to Mr. De Berdt. 

New "Jersey^ Feb. 20, 1777. 

'' The bearer of this is my half-brother who has been bred to 
trade but thrown out of all his prospects by the unhappy state of 
public affairs. I have therefore concluded to send him to 
Europe by the only conveyance this country now affords, — 
where he may acquire some knowledge of foreign languages 
and perhaps lay a foundation of future connexions. If he 
delivers you this it will most probably be in consequence 
of his being taken by some British cruiser, and in that case he 
will be stripped of the money he takes for necessary expenses. 
In such case he must depend upon you to relieve his necessities 
which you will do in the most frugal manner and return him as 
soon as possible. Or if he can be of use to you in your caunt- 
ing-house as a clerk I think his time will be well spent, and he 
is not of a temper so aspiring as to be above that station, if you 
can find employ for him. His parts are not of the brightest 
kind but he has a good disposition very tracStable, not addicted 
to any vice that I know of, and I believe in point of fidelity and 
honesty may be thoroughly depended on. Having been taken 
from school and put apprentice where he has been kept down 
to business, you will find him little acquainted with the world.* 
He will therefore have need of your advice and direction in 
a special manner, particularly with regard to his company. He 
has some turn for reading which may preserve him from danger- 
ous amusements. He has no fortune so that having his own 
industry wholly to rely upon he will implicitlv comply with what 
you think best for him." 

The lad thus sent to Europe by Mr. Reed's bounty, 
at a time when means were very narrow remained abroad 
till long after the war. Thus disappears Mr. Bancroft's 



I? 

witness to Mr. Reed's "avarice," ' the wood sawing 
brother.' 

I hesitate, for it seems to be trifling with the reader's 
patience, to point out, in this connexion, another of Mr. 
Bancroft's mutilations which though minute is charader- 
istic. I give it without comment: — 

"In August 1782 General Greene who was Reed's friend 
described him 'as pursuing wealth with avidity,' being convinced 
that to have power you must have riches."* 

Tfie unmutilated passage is this, in a letter to Charles 
Pettit : — 

" 1 have not a line from Governor Reed for a long time. I 
suppose he is buried in business, pursuing wealth with avidity, 
being convinced that to have power you must have riches. His 
letters are both instructive and entertaining." 

Can this be called a 'description ' of Mr. Reed's ra- 
pacity? His 'avarice' must, by the by, have been in- 
termittent, for, in November, 1778, Walter Stewart 
wrote to General Wayne (and this letter was sent to me 
by Mr. Bancroft as recently as December, 1859) : — 

" The Treasury is entirely drained, but the President Mr. 
Reed has offered to lend £1000 to purchase necessaries, and he 
intends to propose it to other gentlemen to spare such sums as 
are convenient to put matters on a proper footing." 

* Essay, p. 49. 



To Mr. Bancroft's review of Mr, Reed's career, I can 
oppose but one thing, — the record of a life illustrated 
by public and private correspondence, with the filial 
comment which years ago I put upon it, — a record, 
which, when better feeling prevailed, Mr. Bancroft said 
was ' a most valuable contribution to historical literature ' 
and, strange to say, a tribute to ' the memory of my 
ancestor' — which, in the compilation of his 'History,' 
he has used without stint, though always without ac- 
knowledgment and which, at the end of twenty years, 
survives, the only Pennsylvania biography, without its 
accuracy being impeached or its fairness disparaged. It 
was disfigured by no spoils of the grave twisted into 
historical paradoxes in Mr. Bancroft's fashion. There 
is in it no word which is not truthful and certainly no 
one of injustice to the dead or wilful pain to the living. 
1 trust I may be pardoned for thus speaking of my own 
work, to which all my early life was devoted, and of 
which, the animating motive, called into new life by the 
defamation of this day, was rational pride in the good 
name which had come down to me. This record, in its 
entirety, I oppose, without further reference to the gen- 
eral subject, to Mr. Bancroft's ' Essay.' 

With one thing the reader cannot fail to be struck, 
that all the materials of defamation which Mr. Bancroft 
uses and perverts, aside from his foreign resources, come 
from ' the grandson's ' biography. That biography was 



19 

meant to contain exact truth; — It was intended that 
Mr. Reed should, as far as possible, tell his own story — 
and I re-affirm, what was stated with emphasis in my 
former pamphlet, that there is no American biography 
with so thorough a revelation of a public man's inner 
nature and thoughts and motives, as in the letters to 
his wife — his cherished and devoted wife, who, Mr. Ban- 
croft falsely insinuates, was handed over with her little 
children, as hostages to the Hessians — to his relatives, 
to his friends at home and abroad ; all was given with- 
out alteration or suppression. If Mr. Reed favoured 
or opposed this or that line of policy ; if, with Robert 
Morris, he doubted the expediency of declaring In- 
dependence ; if he preferred the continuance of the Old 
Pennsylvania Assembly ; if he thought the discipline 
of the army defective, and believed or fancied that 
Washington hesitated too much, or too often, or once — 
all this was fairly stated. But for my book, Mr. Ban- 
croft would have had no materials to work with. 
I now proceed to consider the matters of detail. 

I. THE DARTMOUTH CORRESPONDENCE OF I774, '75. 

This first appeared in print in my Biography in 1847. 
And here on the threshold I pause on a minute misrepre- 
sentation. Mr. Bancroft says that Mr. Reed kept 
copies of these letters, and calls attention to a discrepancy 
between the written and printed letters. If the reader 



20 

will turn to the Life of Reed, with every word of which 
Mr. Bancroft is familiar, he will find that, when my book 
w-as printed, I had no copies but only imperfect draughts 
in some cases so much defaced as to be scarcely intel- 
ligible."'' From these draughts I printed, the copies 
from the originals in England not reaching me till all 
but my Preface had gone through the press. According 
to my recolledlion, the copies, when recovered, were lent 
to Mr. Bancroft. Writing of these letters in 1775, Mr. 
Reed said to a friend : 

" Mrs. Reed wiites me that she consulted you on the ma- 
licious report propagated by Sheriff Lee and Ewing that I was 
acting a double part upon this occasion. I should not be de- 
sirous of disclosing my letters to Lord Dartmouth, but I have no 
reason to be afraid of doing so if necessary. No such letters 
have yet been published. I only communicated to him transac- 
tions earlier than he found them in the newspapers. I gave no 
opinions but what led to a renunciation of the present system. 
I avowed my own principles that the right of taxation was in- 
compatible with the ideas of our rights derived under the British 
Constitution, and cautioned him against trusting to letters and 
advices from this country of men holding or seeking office. In 
my first letter I absolutely disclaimed all office or reward for 
myself. The general sentiments I am sure would be approved ; 
some might find fault with particular expressions. But even 
this, I have dropped, finding Lord Dartmouth did not resign, as 
I expedted. I have not written to him since the beginning of 
last February, though he has through Mr. DeBerdt solicited it 
strongly. I never received but one letter from him, which was 
a long expostulation on my principles, and a vindication of his 

* Essay, p. 8. Life of Reed, Vol. I., p. 51. 



21 

system, to which I made as good a reply as I could. With 
common candour my friends need have no fear for me. The 
open and decisive part I have taken in public affairs, your loss 
of office, and every other circumstance, I think, must evidently 
prove mv fidelity to the cause I have espoused, or I must have 
been an idiot."* 

Commenting on this, Mr. Bancroft says : 

" During his stay in England Reed formed those relations 
which, through his brother-in-law, Dennis De Berdt, led to his 
becoming the volunteer correspondent, or rather the volunteer 
•informer, of Lord Dartmouth, who then, as American minister, 
controlled the distribution of offices in America. His first letter 
to Dartmouth, dated the 22d of December, 1773, derives its 
importance for the present examination only from this: In 1775, 
Reed fell under a suspicion of playing a double part in these 
letters, and his defence was : " In my first letter I absolutely 
disclaimed all office or reward for myself." Now, in truth, 
there is in this first letter no disclaimer of office or reward, so 
that Reed met a charge of duplicity by an answer which had no 
foundation in fact ; and there was the less occasion for so great 
a mis-statement, as he kept a copy of his letters. "f 

Mr. Bancroft is for once correct in a minute criticism, 
for the disclaimer of office by Mr. Reed for himself and his 
friends was not in a letter to Lord Dartmouth but in 
one to Mr. De Berdt to be shown to the Minister, t 

* Life of Reed, Vol. I., p. 97. 

f Essay, p. 8. 

I Life of Reed, Vol. I. p. 42. 



I have, since the appearance of this ' Essay ' re-read 
with great care the correspondence with Lord Dartmouth 
and my own almost forgotten comment on it, which I 
here reproduce as the best answer to Mr. Bancroft's un- 
generous criticism, begging the reader to remember that 
when he was writing the portion of his 'history' which re- 
lated to the time this correspondence covered, though he 
had the copies in his possession and knew all about 
them, he never whispered a word kindred to those he 
now so glibly writes. He knew then, as he knows now, 
that the letters of Mr. Reed to Lord Dartmouth were, 
in every way, creditable and, as revealing the fa6t that 
the Ministry knew the truth about America, invaluable 
as materials for history. It has been lately said or con- 
jeftured that it is possible, had Lord George Germaine 
or Lord North had so truth-telling and honest a cor- 
respondent as Mr. Reed, some of their rash measures 
of coercion might have been arrested. Lord Mahon in 
his History of England comments with kindness and 
good sense on the letters in which Mr. Bancroft in his 
latter days sees so much mischief.* My own view 
twenty years ago was this : 

" Throughout all the letters to the Minister, which 
from this time became less frequent, there is a subdued 
tone of expression little consonant with the temper of 

* History of England, Vol. VI. Chapter 51. 



^3 

the writer's mind. A different strain of feeling per- 
vaded Mr. Reed's intercourse with others. His letters 
to his friends were the unrestrained expression of his zeal 
and patriotic fervour, made in the security that con- 
fidence would not be abused. To the Minister he wrote 
under the restraint which the peculiarity of their relations 
produced, and with a degree ol reserve as to his own 
participation in public affairs which was requisite to 
give his communications the effeft that he desired. This 
caution was urged upon him in every letter from Mr. 
De Berdt, who felt an anxious interest in the success of 
measures of conciliation, and to whose inspedion all the 
letters were submitted. His fear was, and it does not 
appear unreasonable, that if the Minister regarded his 
correspondent as a violent partisan, though he could not 
view him otherwise than as a decided advocate of colonial 
privileges, he would disregard his opinions as emanating 
from the sources which were obnoxious to ministerial 
displeasure.".* 

But that it would expand this publication too much, 
I should be glad to re-produce this correspondence at 
length, and especially the letters of September, 1774, 
and then ask the judgment of any candid reader on the 
purity and integrity of the motives which prompted a 
man to write as Mr. Reed did. How little real differ- 

" Lite ot Reed, vol. i, pp. 84, 8"^. 



24 

ence there was between the letters to private friends, and 
to his official correspondent, will be apparent from the 
citations which Mr. Bancroft is especially careful to 
keep out of view : — 

To Mr. Quincy. To Lord Dartmouth. 

"Our operations have been "The Americans are certain- 

almost too slow for the ac- ly determined never to submit to 
cumulated sufferings of Boston, the claims of Parliament, unless 
Should this bloodless war fail compelled to do so by irresist- 
of its effe6t, a great majority ible force ; and this submission 
of the Colonies will make the will never continue longer than 
last appeal, before they resign the force which produces it. 
their liberties into the hands of However visionary it may ap- 
any ministerial tyrant." — 25//; pear at first view, to give up 
Oct.^ 1774- the commerce of the whole 

country, and in the last resort 
to try their strength in arms 
with so potent a nation as Great 
Britain, your Lordship may de- 
pend upon it, they will try 
both." — 15^/^ October^ ^11 \- 

To iMr. De Berdt. To Lord Dartmouth. 
"We are indeed on the "The King's Speech was re- 
melancholy verge of civil war. ceived with a kind of sullenness 
United as one man, and breath- which I cannot describe, but is 
ing a spirit of the most ani- strongly expressive of a re- 
matina kind, the Colonies are solution and spirit not to sub- 
resolved to risk the consequen- mit without a struggle, in case 
ces of opposition to the late no conciliatory measures are 
edias of parliament. All ranks adopted by Great Britain. 



25 

of people, from the highest to There is scarcely a man in 
the lowest, speak the same lang- this country, My Lord, in or 
uao;e and will ad the same out of office not of immediate 
part." — 26th Sept. ^ ^11\' appointment from England, who 

will not oppose taxation by the 
British Parliament ! 

This country will be deluged 
with blood, before it will sub- 
mit to any other taxation than 
that by their own Legislation." 
— \Oth February., 1775. 

Such was the last letter written to Lord Dartmouth, 
for, after the sword was drawn in April at Lexington, all 
correspondence ceased, and he who wrote so boldly and 
truthfully is described by Mr. Bancroft as 'an informer,' 
and a mercenary suppliant for office ! Though even to 
do this he has to resort to his chronic habit of mutila- 
tion.''' 

II, MR. REED AS SECRETARY TO WASHINGTON, AND IN 
THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY OF I776. 

Kindred to the perversion of history as to the Dart- 
mouth Letters is that with resped: to Mr. Reed's con- 

* This will be seen, with ail the parade of italics, at page 12 of the 
Essay, where the following sentence in immediate context is suppressed : 
**My opinion of the system of Colony administration must be wholly 
changed, before I can give my support to any measure of the British 
government founded upon it." — I. Life of Reed, p. 98. 

4 



26 

dudl in the early part of 1776. The Bancroft venom 
here is concentrated. He says that Mr. Reed joined 
Washington's staff at Cambridge "because very exagger- 
ated opinions prevailed in Philadelphia of the strength 
of the New England army around Boston " that he 
left it, after four months' restless and discontented ser- 
vice, to take his place in the Pennsylvania Assembly to 
which he had been elected ; that during his term of legis- 
lative service, he thwarted the measures of *the advanced 
patriots ;' and, that " he rejoined the army so as to avoid 
the necessity of voting on measures of the last resort."'^' 
I think I state this series of untruths accurately. The 
aggregate is untrue ; the detail is untrue ; and Mr. Ban- 
croft knew it all to be untrue. The minute inaccuracies 
are amusing : — " On the 3d of January, 1776, the Penn- 
sylvania Convention met in Philadelphia, and eledled 
Joseph Reed, President."f This is not so. No Con- 
vention met in Philadelphia in January, 1776 : it was in 
January, 1775. — "In July, Reed goes to New England 
on the staff of Washington." This is not true, for Mr. 
Reed went to New England in June, accompanying 
General Washington thither from Philadelphia as a 
private citizen ; and Mr. Bancroft has in his possession 
printed letters showing this to be so. He was an- 
nounced in General Orders as Secretary in July, but he 

* Essay, page 12. 
f Essay, pp. II, 12. 



27 

went to New England weeks before. This is certainly 
very Moose' historical writing. 

The true mode, however, of answering such conglom- 
erate misrepresentations is to state the exact truth. 

Let it be clearly understood that Mr. Reed was in 
favour, as a mode of redress, of continuing the Charter 
Legislative Institutions ; of maintaining the Constitu- 
tional relations of the colonies to Great Britain ; and at 
the time of its Declaration opposed to Independence; 
and even after it was declared, not averse to reconciliation 
with the Mother Country, if the pretensions of Parlia- 
mentary supremacy were renounced and the constitu- 
tional rights of the colonies recognized and secured. I 
cannot make a more candid statement of his opinions, 
and this in my biography was done long ago. These were 
the views, not only of Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Willing, 
but of 'advanced patriots' such as Charles Thomson and 
Robert Morris and David Rittenhouse and James Wil- 
son. 'Wilson,' says Mr. Bancroft, 'was listened to with 
disgust;' ' Morris was opposed to it,' and yet Wilson and 
Morris signed the Declaration and were as true to the 
cause as any.* But, being thus opposed to precipitate 
measures, Mr. Reed was ready, the moment the crisis of 
arms came, to take his share of duty and of danger. 
Writing to his wife, in September, '76, from Washing- 

* Bancroft's 'History,' Vol. VIII., p. 313. 



28 

ton's Camp, he says : " When I look round and see 
how few of those who talked so largely of death and 
honour are around me, and that those who are here are 
those from whom it was least expefted, as the Tilghmans, 
etc., I am lost in wonder and surprise — your noisy sons 
of liberty I find the quietest in the field." '•' The 
last sad years of our American history, furnish a close 
parallel for those who thought and acted as did Mr. 
Reed in 1776. It is that of the gallant men who re- 
sisted by word and vote and counsel the secession of 
the Southern States from the Federal Union in 1861 ; 
who thought it perilous and ill-advised ; from whom, as 
one of them has said, 'the Ordinances of Secession wrung 
bitter tears of grief;' and yet who, when the deed was 
done and the die was cast, stood by the cause and fought 
bravely and suffered deeply. It does not disturb the 
parallel that, in the one case the cause of Independence 
failed and in the other it succeeded ; the hesitation and 
the action were the same. 

'The exaggerated reports of the strength of the New 
England army round Boston,' tempted Mr. Reed to join 
Washington. So says Mr. Bancroft. Now let us see 
what the truth is. No fad is better ascertained than that 
when Mr. Reed was one of Washington's escort from 
Philadelphia, he had no- idea of attaching himself to the 

* I. Life of Reed, p. 231. 



29 

service. He had no military knowledge or experience. 
It was his personal association with Washington that led 
him to continue the journey. "Washington's friend- 
ship to Mr. Reed," says a kinder and more truthful his- 
torian than Mr. Bancroft, "was frank and cordial; and 
the confidence he reposed in him full and implicit. 
Reed in fad became, in a little time, the intimate com- 
panion of his thoughts, his bosom counsellor. He felt 
the need of such a friend in the present exigency, placed 
as he was, in a new and untried situation, and having to 
adt with persons hitherto unknown to him. Mr. Reed 
had strong common sense, unclouded by passion and 
prejudice, and a pure patriotism which regarded every- 
thing as it bore upon the welfare of his country."* This 
surely is a more reasonable solution of Mr. Reed's con- 
duct than the Bancroft imaginings as to the multitudin- 
ous *New England array round Boston.' 

And the *four months' at Cambridge, how were they 
passed.^ In restlessness or discontent.'' Did he write 
a word of despondency or doubt ? He was Washing- 
ton's 'bosom friend and counsellor,' It was not the 
'infedion of enthusiasm' which bound him in close sym- 
pathy to his Chief, but conscientious admiration of his 
noble traits.*!" Mr. Reed writes with uniform content- 

* I. Irving's Washington, p. i6. 

■}" Hamilton's Republic, Vol. II, p. 174. A very close and natura' 
sympathy seems latterly to bind together Mr. Bancroft and Mr. J. C. 



so 

ment, except as to separation from his young and de- 
pendent family. "Our camp continues very healthy. 
Provisions of all kinds cheap and plenty and, what is of 
more consequence, discipline and good order prevail 
more and more every day. A company of Virginia 
Riflemen came yesterday very healthy and in good 
spirits." "Good health," says he again, "good humour 
and a noble candour prevail through the whole camp." 
Later he says, "Boston must, I fear, be given up for the 
common safety. The army and navy here must at all 
events be destroyed this winter. Should it be reinforced, 
the consequences to America will be dreadful. I preach 
this dodlrine with all my might and hope the Committee 
of Congress, who are expected here this week, will con- 
firm it. The General is anxious to strike some decisive 
stroke and would have done it before this if it had not 
been misrepresented to him." 

Does any one recognize in him who could write so 
earnestly and cheerfully, the halting, half-hearted, 'shuf- 
ling, pusillanimous, irresolute trimmer' Mr. Bancroft 
paints ? 

Nor did he leave or think of leaving Washington till 
all idea of an offensive movement was by the decision of 
a Council of War abandoned. Speaking of the state of 

Hamilton. Mr. Bancroft's relations to other descendants of Philip 
Schuyler are by no means so friendly. 



31 

things in the New England camp round Boston, it was 
Washington, not Reed, who said: — "Could I have fore- 
seen the difficulties that have come upon us, could I have 
known that such a backwardness would have been dis- 
covered in the old soldiers in the service, all the Gener- 
als upon earth should not have convinced me of the pro- 
priety of delaying an attack ifpon Boston." He writes 
to Reed on 28th of November, 1775: — "Such a dirty, 
mercenary spirit pervades the whole that I should not 
be at all surprised at any disaster that may happen. 
Could I have foreseen what I have and am likely to ex- 
perience, no consideration upon earth should have in- 
duced me to accept the command."* All this, Mr. Ban- 



^■'- In 1859, Mr. Bancroft sent me the following extracts from 
a letter of Washington to Richard Henry Lee, dated 29 August, 
1775. It illustrates Washington's opinion of 'the New England army 
round Boston.' "As we have now nearly completed our lines of de- 
fence, we have nothing more in my opinion to fear from the enemy 
provided we can keep our men to their duty and make them watchful 
and vigilant, but it is among the most difficult tasks I ever undertook in 
my life to induce these people to believe there is any danger till the 
bayonet is pushed at their breasts ; not that it proceeds from any un- 
common prowess, but rather from an unaccountable kind of stupidity 
in the lower classes of these people, which believe me prevails but too 
generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the army who 
are nearly of the same kidney with the privates." * * * " I have 
made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the Massachu- 
setts Government abounds in since I came to this camp, having broke 
one Colonel and two Captains for cowardly behaviour in the aftion on 
Bunker's Hill ; two Captains for drawing more provisions and pay than 
they had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post 
when the enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Besides 



32 

croft, on his theory of adulation and disparagement, 
studiously ignores, passing it by with something like a 
sneer at the *four months' service' and Mr. Reed's 'pro- 
fessions of fidelity.' He seems incapable of knowing 
what an honest and generous friendship means. 

Mr. Reed left camp on the 29th of Oftober, 1775, 
and then began the remarkable series of private letters 
from Washington which have attraded so much atten- 
tion and, accidentally, as to their style, provoked much 
controversy. Mr. Bancroft has not, either in his history 
or his ' Essay,' a word about them. It was Washington 
Irving who had the heart to say : 

" How precious are these letters ! And how fortunate 
that the absence of Reed from camp should have pro- 
cured for us such confidential outpourings of Washing- 
ton's heart, at this time of its great trial."* 

It is not at all necessary for vindication to quote from 
this continuous and protracted correspondence evidence 
of Washington's affeftionate regard, and of his craving 
for Mr. Reed's return to him. 

these I have at this time one Colonel, one Major, one Captain and two 
subalterns under arrest for trial. In short I spare none, and yet fear it 
will not all do, as these people seem to be too attentive to every thing 
but their interest." * * * " My life has been nothing else since 
I came here but one continued round of vexation and fatigue." — Ban- 
croft, MSS. 

* II. Irving's Washington, p. 178. 



33 

On the 26th of January 1776, Mr. Reed was eleded to 
the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and on the i6th of Feb- 
ruary took his seat, qualifying himself in the usual form 
and no doubt intending to labour for reconciliation, or, in 
Washington's words 'restoration of peace, if possible, 
on the old ground of 1763,' but giving to the military 
organization a thorough support, such as it was entitled 
to even if it were temporary. "I congratulate you," 
wrote Washington, "on your eledion, although I consider 
it the coup de grace to my expeftation of ever seeing you 
resident in this camp again." 

Mr. Bancroft makes it matter of crimination that Mr, 
Reed took the oath of allegiance and of equivocal praise to 
Doctor Franklin, whom he calls 'more wary' that he did 
not: in fact that he resigned 'under the plea of age.''" I 
am unable to see the point of this criticism ; the Charter 
government being in undisturbed existence and the au- 
thority of the Crown still recognized. Rittenhouse, 
who was ele(5ted in Franklin's place and who was an 
'advanced patriot' took the oath without a scruple. The 
Journals of the Assembly and Mr. Reed's letters to 
Washington (the few that have survived) tell in simple 
language what Mr. Reed did during his brief legislative 
term of 1776, "We have made," says he writing to 
the Commander-in-Chief on the 27th of March, "a 

* Bancroft, 'History,' Vol. VIII., pp. 315-369; 'Essay,' p. 12. 



34 

very great change in the councils of this Province, and, 
I hope, a favourable one for the* common cause. Having 
introduced seventeen new members at once into the 
House of Assembly, the increase of representation is in 
those parts of the Province where the spirit of liberty 
most prevails, and, of consequence, our measures will 
partake of it." 

Mr. Bancroft, who finds no merit in anything that 
Mr. Reed does or omits to do ; who, seeing no good 
motive for joining Washington in the first instance, sees 
none in his rejoining him afterwards. Offensive to good 
taste and repugnant to truth as his words are I give 
them : 

" Had Reed remained in the assembly he would have been com- 
pelled to have chosen his side and to have a(Sled with or against 
John Adams on the question whether Pennsylvania should take 
up a government of its own. The responsibility proved too 
much for his nerves. He therefore escaped from the dilemma 
by rejoining the army and he himself gives as his reason: "I 
have been much induced to this measure by observing that this 
province will be a great scene of party and contention this 
summer.'"*" 

There is, in this, an effrontery of mis-statement un- 
equalled by Mr. Bancroft himself. It is not easy to 
determine from the Journals when Mr. Reed was last in 
his seat in the Assembly. Praftically, after the 30th of 

'■■ Essay, p. 13. 



35 

May, legislative adion was suspended for want of a 
quorum and as far back as the middle of April Mr. 
Reed contemplated rejoining Washington at New York. 
"When, my good sir," wrote the Commander-in-Chief 
to him on the 15th, "when will you be with me? I 
fear I shall have a difficult card to play in this govern- 
ment, and wish for your assistance and advice to manage 
it.'"^ Indeed, in March, Mr. Reed intended going back. 
On the 3d, he wrote to Mr. Pettit : — "I look upon 
separation from the Mother Country as a certain event 
though we are not yet so familiarized to the idea as 
thoroughly to approve it. Some talk of the Commis- 
sioners, but so faintly, that it is easy to see they do not 
exped: any benefit, safety or honour from the negocia- 
tion. The Congress have acceded to every proposition 
the General has made as to myself; so that I exped to 
set out for camp as soon as I have removed my family 
either to Burlington or Haddonfield and the session of 
the Assembly is over. The Congress are paving the 
way to a Declaration of Independence, but I believe 
will not make it until the minds of the people are better 
prepared for it than as yet they are." This was two 
months before the passage of John Adams' Resolution 
in terror or perplexity at which Mr. Bancroft imagines 
Mr. Reed fled to the edge of battle at New York. 

* Writings of Washington, Vol. III., p. 357. 



36 

On the 30th of May 1776 Mr. Reed resigned his 
Secretaryship in the following graceful letter to the 
President of Congress, his successor being Robert H. 
Harrison, of Maryland : 

Philadelphia^ Ma\ 30, 1 776. 
Sir: 

The Honourable Congress having been pleased some time ago 
to make an addition to the pay of the General's Secretary upon 
the expectation that I should continue in that appointment, I 
think it my duty to acquaint you that agreeable thereto I re- 
paired to New York, where I found a gentleman of character 
and abilities performingtheservicesof that office to the satisfa6tion 
of the General. As my first acceptance of the office was purely 
accidental and occasioned by public motives, the necessity of my 
continuance seemed now to cease and induced me to request the 
General to excuse my further attendance which he was so oblig- 
ing as to comply with. This, and engagements both of a public 
and private nature in this Province and these only were my 
reasons for declining the service ; at the same time, I assured 
the General that if, in the course of business, my small abilities 
could be of any use I would on the shortest notice most cheer- 
fully direct myself to it again. Having been absent from the 
General for some time I considered the pay of the office most 
properly due to those gentlemen who did the duty during my 
absence ; I accordingly, with the General's approbation, di\'ided 
it between them. I have the honour to be, with the greatest 
respect and regard. 

Your most obedient servant, 

Joseph Reed.* 
To Mr. Hancock. 

* Force's Archives, Series IV., vol. VI., p. 620. 



31 

On the 5th of June, Congress elefted three friends, 
each of whom Mr. Bancroft has disparaged, to high and 
responsible military positions : Joseph Reed, Adjutant 
General ; Stephen Moylan, Quarter Master General ; 
and, Hugh Mercer of Virginia, Brigadier General ; and 
Mr. Reed communicated to his family his translation to 
this new sphere of duty in a letter, out of the middle 
of which ignoring, in his usual fashion, the context, Mr. 
Bancroft picks a sentence on which to found a calumny. 

"You will be surprised but I hope not dejected 
when I tell you that a great revolution has happened in 
my prospects and views. Yesterday the General sent 
for me and in a very obliging manner pressed me to ac- 
cept the office of Adjutant General which General Gates 
lately filled. The proposition was new and surprising 
so that I requested till this day to consider of it. I 
objected my want of military knowledge but several 
members of Congress treated it so lightly and in short 
said so many things that I have consented to go. I 
have been much induced to this measure by observing 
that this province will be a great scene of party and con- 
tention this summer. * '^- ''' '^' ■''• This post is 
honourable and if the issue is favourable to America 
must put me on a respedable scale : should it be other- 
wise I have done enough to expose myself to ruin. I 



<-^ 



38 

have endeavoured to act for the best and hope you will 
think so.* 



III. THE ADJUTANT-GENERALSHIP IN I776. 

Mr. Bancroft finds a bad motive in Mr. Reed's 
accepting the Adjutant-Generalship and a worse one in 
his relinquishing it but he has not a word to say of 
the fidelity and zeal with which, during the most anxious 
months of the war, its irksome duties were discharged. 
I appeal from this unjust silence to the unquestioned 
record. Colonel Reed was in adive service, in the field, 
in battle, watching the discipline or as may be said the 
police of the camp, for there was then none of the com- 
plex military apparatus of later days and attending to the 
most vexatious matters of detail. Such were his thank- 
less duties as described, a year later, in the earnest words 
I quoted in my Reply.f He was at Washington's side 
within the lines of Brooklyn ; aiding him in the delicate 
negociation with Sir William Howe; with him in the 
retreat from New York ; with him under fire on the 
heighths of Harlaem ; with him at Kingsbridge and at 
White Plains; with him when watching the catastrophe 
of Fort Washington ; with him on the retreat over the 

* Life of Reed, Vol. I., p. 190. 
t ^^P^y P- 117- 



39 

Hackensack, and yet of all this, Mr. Bancroft has but 
one word to say and that is, as evidence of Colonel 
Reed's 'disloyalty,' to exhibit the fragment of a letter, the 
genuineness of which he knows was long ago questioned 
and which, but that it discredited a Pennsylvania soldier, 
Mr. Bancroft would have rejedted. He culls from 
Gordon and Stedman part of a letter which, they say, 
Reed wrote to "a member of Congress" on the 4th of 
July, '76. It is in these words: — 

"With an army of force before and a secret one behind we 
stand on a point of land with six thousand old troops (if a year's 
service of about half, can entitle them to the name) and about 
fifteen hundred new levies of this province, many disaffected 
and more doubtful. In this situation we are ; every man in the 
army, from the general to the private (acquainted with our true 
situation) is exceedingly discouraged. Had I knoivn the true 
posture of affairs^ no comideration would have te7npted me to have 
taken an aSiive part of this scene ; and this sentiment is univer- 
sal."* 

The italics are Mr. Bancroft's and yet as I have 
said he knew perfedly well that, years ago, as far back 
as 1847, the opinion was expressed that this letter was 
spurious or that it was mis-dated.f On the 26th of 
June, Mr. Reed wrote to his wife : "If the enemy put 
off their arrival a little longer we shall be well prepared 
to receive them. The post at Kingsbridge is a very 

* Gordon, Vol. II., p. 278. 
f Life of Reed, Vol. I., p. 194. 



40 

strong one and occupied by troops who, I believe, will 
do their duty. We now have powder plenty. In short, 
if our attention is not drawn Northward by Burgoyne 
who is certainly arrived there, I think we shall do very 
well here." On the 27th he says: "Our lot is cast in 
very difficult and troubled times, in which our utmost 
fortitude is necessary; nor do I despair, if the country 
is animated with a suitable spirit ; but, if that fails, our 
cause will be desperate indeed, as we have proceeded 
such lengths that unless we go further we shall be 
branded most justly as the basest and meanest of man- 
kind. Nor shall I think any indignity or subjection too 
degrading to us. Instead of contesting about or settling 
forms of government we must now oppose the common 
enemy with spirit and resolution or all is lost." On 
the ist of July he wrote: "Troops are coming in fast 
and if they defer an attack any time we shall have a 
number to cope with them. Everything, I hope, my 
dear creature, will turn out right and we shall again en- 
joy many happy days together;" and on the 3d: "We 
cannot find that Howe has brought any foreigners with 
him ; if so I hope we shall be able to keep him at bay 
some time at least. The summer is now pretty well 
wasted. If this army can be kept from penetrating the 
the country or getting possession of this place, America 
is saved." 



41 

It was the collation of the Gordon extradl, with these 
hopeful, cheering utterances of Mr. Reed's inner thoughts, 
together with the fact that the army before New York 
consisted at that time, not of Six but of Eight thousand 
effective men exclusive of the ' new levies' which con- 
vinced me years ago (and I am of that opinion still) 
either that this letter was spurious or that it was mis- 
dated. The phrase 'a secret army behind,' has no 
meaning and I observe that Mr. Force, who scrutinizes 
everything, does not think this garbled extrad: worth 
printing.''' Had the date been September, after the dis- 
aster on Long Island, there would have been more veri- 
similitude in it for, then, Mr. Reed wrote to his wife : 
"My country will, I trust, yet be free, whatever may be 
our fate, who are cooped up or are in danger of being so 
on a tongue of land where we ought never to have 
been," and Washington said: "Till of late I had no 
doubt of defending this place ; nor should I have yet 
if the men would do their dutv — but this I despair of " 

Of course, the Gordon-Stedman extrad: is highly 
relished by Mr. Bancroft. He used it five years ago in 
his Eighth Volume and he now reproduces it in his 
' Essay', carefully avoiding all allusion to the rest of Mr. 

* "Mr. Force of Washington City, whose success in collefting mat- 
erials for American History is exceeded onl}' bv his honest love of 
historic truth." — Bancroft, VI,, Tntroduftion, p. 9. 

G 



42 

Reed's correspondence, so confident and so cheerful in 
the midst of gloom. Of the episode of the Howe ne- 
gociation which belongs to this period I have already 
spoken.'-' 

I now come to the relinquishment of the Adjutant- 
Generalship which Mr, Bancroft describes as an ad of 
secret pusillafiimity which was frustrated in the first 
instance by 'a rebuke' from Washington, and as having 
been contemplated for a long time and studiously 
concealed. 

Mr. Bancroft publishes, as I did, the two letters to 
Congress of the 28th of November, and 2nd of Decem- 
ber, but neither he nor I (I because it escaped my atten- 
tion when I was preparing my pamphlet and he because 
it disproves the dark suspicions which on this subjed 
he cherishes) printed the letter of the ist of Odober, 
in which, to a Committee of Congress, Mr. Reed 
communicated his intention to resign. It seems to me 
a very straight-forward letter, stating the writer's wishes, 
written too, not at a moment of gloom for Odiober 
1776 was relatively a cheerful month in the 'Rebel' 
camp. It was soon after the skirmish near Harlaem 
and before Fort Washington was threatened. It seems 
but common justice to attribute a direct purpose to 
this letter. 

* Reply, p. 15. 



43 

" Your departure from this place," he wrote to the committee 
of Congress, "earlier than I expected obliges me to communicate 
to you this way what I intended to have done in person. I 
observe that the Congress in the establishment of a new and 
permanent army have very proj^rly /eserved the appointment of 
General Officers to themselves. As the Department I now have 
the honour to hold is in that class and of very great importance 
to the public safety and welfare, I think it my indispensable duty 
to acquaint you as early as possible that I find mv apprehensions 
of not being able to fill it to advantage to the public and 
satisfaction to myself, have been too well realised to allow 
me to continue in it. If there is any Department in the 
Army which should be filled by one who has made Arms his 
profession, it is this, and I doubt whether any abilities or readino- 
can supply the deficiency of practice. In a well-regulated 
army it is a post of great concern and difficulty and alwavs 
filled by some officer of the greatest experience : how much more 
necessary must it be in ours, where the greatest part are un-inform- 
ed of their duty and the frequent changes keep us constantly- 
ignorant. To set out with the new troops ; to lead them on step 
by step in the various duties of the camp, the parade and the 
field ; to establish one system of exercise through the whole, so 
that the machine though large may move with ease, will require 
an officer to whom the minute duties are familiar and whose 
knowledge and experience will claim respect in his discharge of 
greater ones. I feel myself often at a loss in the former and 
inexpressibly so in the latter : to continue therefore in an office 
which may be filled by a man of capacity when I am sensible of 
my deficiencies would, in my opinion, be unbecoming a man 
of character and honour. In the new arrangement, therefore, 
to be made, you will be pleased to consider this department 
as one to be provided for, and the sooner, I apprehend, the better. 
The General's friendship and partiality would doubtless induce 
him to retain me with him and supply my own defeats from his 
own knowledge and application to business, both of which are 



44 

very great. I have not therefore as yet acquainted him with my 
intentions, but I beg you will do me the justice to believe that 
neither a regard to private interests, personal danger, or dis- 
satisfaction with the service, but a single eye to the public service 
has a£luated me on this occasion. I shall not hesitate to apply 
the little knowledge and experience I have acquired to the public 
service in a channel through which I can serve it with satisfaction 
and honour, but I cannot continue in an important department 
where the public and my own character will eventually suffer."* 

Really, this sounds like good sense and good feeling, 
and the hurried importunity of "the sooner the better" 
as represented by Mr. Bancroft, tades away into innocence 
in the reasonable wish for an early decision. The same 
may be said as to the reasons for not mentioning it to 
the Commander-in-chief He does not say that Wash- 
ington thought the public interest required him to 
remain. 

But 1 regret being obliged, on this head, to charge 
and to prove on Mr. Bancroft another mis-quotation 
almost as gross as in the Donop matter. It will not 
be difficult to make this apparent to the eye. — Mr. Ban- 
croft thus professes to quote, as illustrative of Mr. 
Reed's growing timidity, a letter to his wife: 

" On the I ith of October, Joseph Reed wrote to his wife : 

'You ask me what I propose to do r It is a difficult question 
to answer. Mv idea is shortly this, that if France or some other 

* Force, Archives, p. 826. 'I'his letter i had not seen when my 
biography was published. 



45 

foreign power does not interfere, or some feuds arise among the 
enemy's troops, we shall not be able to stand next spring. * * * 
But if the enemy should make a vigorous push, I would not 
answer for our success at anv time. ""•'■ "'■ * I have not the least 
desire to sacrifice you and them [mv dear children] to fame. * "^^ 
* * My estate is no object of confiscation, mv rank is not so 
high as to make me an example. * * * From what I can 
learn from Philadelphia, there is a considerable party for absolute 
and unconditional submission. * * * A person must be in 
the secret to know the worst of our affairs.' "* 

I now print the whole passage as it was written, beg- 
ging the reader to observe that the parts in italics are care- 
fully suppressed by Mr. Bancroft and that they are 
passages which disprove the whole theory of despair: 
sentences are actually cut in half 

" You ask me what I propose to do ? It is a difficult question 
to answer, my idea is shortly this, that if France, or some other 
foreign power does not interfere, or some feuds arise among the 
enemy's troops, we shall not be able to stand till next spring. 
If we keep our ground this fall^ which lue may do if a good 
supply of blankets and clothing can be had^ and there is no disappoint- 
ment in the provision to be made for the camp from the Northward; 
but if the enemy should make a vigorous push, I would not 
answer for our success at any time. /// the course of this winter 
it will be seen what expeSfations can be had of the interference of a 
foreign power^ in ivhich event I have no douht the liberties of 
jhnerica may be established on the most permanent footing. Should 
this happen.^ as I never meant to ?nake arms a profession^ my duty to 
you and my dear children luill lead me to pursue that course of life., 
luhich will contribute most to their and your happiness., for though I 

'■' Essay, p. 17, 



46 

would wish to sefvg my country^ and would not spare myself in the 
work, I have not the least desire to sacrifice you and them to 
fame, even if I was sure to attain it. Should there be no such 
interference., my estate is no object of confiscation, my rank is 
not so high as to make me an example, and at all events I have 
only to set out in the world anew. The accounts I have from Phila- 
delphia are very unfavourable. From what I can learn there is a 
considerable party for absolute and unconditional submission. 
fames Allen was here the other day., xvith a view to discover., I sup- 
pose what p7'ospeSi we had., so that the party might take their 
measures accordingly . I fancy things did not please him., as a person 
must be in the secret to know the worst of affairs." And then 
he adds, and this of course Mr. Bancroft keeps out of sight : 
" If the enemy inclines to press us., it is resolved to risk an engagement^ 
for if we cannot fight him on this ground., we can on none in America.^'' 

Is this fair plav? Is it not kindred to literary crimen 
falsi^ 'the fraudulent alteration of a writing to the pre- 
judice of another man's right?''"' 

It was in this letter that Mr. Reed repeated to his 
,vife his intention to resign 'at the close of the campaign,' 
an intention which would have been carried into effect 
sooner, but for the stirring events which intervened. 
From the evacuation of New York Island, till the retreat 
across the Raritan, there was no repose — no intermission 
of active and responsible duty. Mr. Reed meant to re- 
sign in October, but postponed it in the emergency 
which then arose. He did resign in December, and 

* So Blackstone delines ' forgery' of which the punishment once was 
the pillory. 



47 

again withdrew it in view of a kindred emergency and 
for the same reason, and Mr. Bancroft has to invent the 
'rebuke' from Washington as the only means of depre- 
ciating Mr. Reed's motives and disparaging his conduct. 
He retracted his resignation the instant he saw there was 
need for his services and went to the field and fought 
during the remnant of this year, and the next, and the 
next, till the British after the doubtful conflict at Mon- 
mouth in June, 1778, withdrew finally from the Middle 
States. 

The facts in the order of time are these, — and a simple 
statement of them is the best answer to Mr. Bancroft: 

On the 22nd of November, Washington, then at 
Newark, sent Colonel Reed to Governor Livingston. 
He believed he could make a stand at the Raritan. The 
New Jersey Executive, and what survived of the Leg- 
islature did all they could, and, so far, Mr. Reed's 
mission was successful. 'The Legislature' wrote Liv- 
ingston to Washington, 'has made provision for raising 
tour battalions of eight companies each, and ninety 
men to be enlisted till the ist of April, which will 
be carried into execution with all possible despatch." 
"Governor Livingston" Washington wrote to Con- 
gress "is exerting himself to throw in every assistance." 
On the 28th or 30th, Colonel Reed feeling assured that 
the campaign was closed and that the armies would go 



48 

into winter quarters at or near the Raritan, sent his re- 
signation as Adjutant-General to Congress, but even 
then it was not an absolute one. ''As the season," he 
says, "will not admit of further military operations 
(unless the enemy attempt an incursion into this Pro- 
vince, in which case I shall most cheerfully devote my- 
self to any further service) I beg leave to inclose the 
commission, &c."''' Mr. Reed in his pamphlet says that 
the enemy had advanced to Brunswick, where they pro- 
posed to finish the campaign. Mr. Bancroft says 'they 
had not advanced to Brunswick, and had not proposed 

* Bancroft [ 'Essay,' p. 19.] says : "This time Reed took, the very 
unusual and very efFeftual course of getting rid of his commission by 
inclosing the instrument itself to Congress." This manner of resigning 
in those days was not so unusual as Mr. Bancroft imagines. On the 
[st of November, 1781. Robert Morris wrote to the President of Con- 
gress : " I have the honour of enclosing to your Excellency, and pray you 
will deliver to the United States in Congress, the commission by which 
I was appointed Superintendent of their Finances," [Diplomatic Cor- 
respondence, Vol. XII., p. 502.] and we read that on the 23d December, 
1783 : "Washington advanced and gave his cemmission into the hands 
of the President." In the order of proceedings on that occasion it was 
provided : " 4. After a proper time for the arrangement of spectators, 
silence is to be ordered by the Secretary, if necessary, and the President 
is to address the General in the following words : ' Sir, The United 
States in Congress assembled are prepared to receive your communica- 
tions.' " Whereupon the General is to arise, and address Congress ; 
after which he is to deliver his cottnnission and a copy of his Address to 
the President. [Sparks' Writings of Washington, Vol. VIII., p. 509.] 
" Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great 
theatre of action, and bidding an affeflionate farewell to this august body 
under whose order I have so long acted, / here offer my commission and 
take mv leave of all employments of public life." 



49 

to finish t^e campaign.' I affirm, in spite of this bold 
averment, that the enemy did mean, then and there, to 
finish the campaign. The evidence of this, and Mr. 
Bancroft presumed much on the ignorance of his readers 
when he denied it, is the official letter of Sir William 
Howe, from which 1 extrad a few words: — '' On the 30th 
of November" he says "the troops, being on the eve 
ot going into winter cantonments, I trouble your Lord- 
ship with this separate letter. ''' '■' '"•' In consequence of 
my expeftation that Lord Cornwallis, will shortly be in 
possession of Easl Jersey, I propose to quarter a large 
body of troops in that distrid:, without which we should 
be under much difficulty to find covering, forage, and 
supplies of fresh provisions for the army. The plan of 
the enemy, by their public orders, is to destroy all species 
of forage and stock as thev retire before his majesty's 
troops, which I am hopeful they will not have time to 
accomplish, and their further design seems to be to re- 
treat behind the Raritan river, or perhaps behind the 
Delaware, to cover Philadelphia." — He then states his 
plan for "the next campaign" part of which was: "A 
defensive army of 8,000 men to cover Jersey, and to 
keep the Southern army in check, by giving a jealousy 
to Philadelphia, which I would propose to attack in the 
Autumn." "My first design" he wrote afterwards 
"extending no further than to get and keep possession 
of East Jersey, Lord Cornwallis had orders not to ad- 



50 

vance beyond Brunswick." The change which took 
place in the enemy's movements was a sudden one. How 
sudden, will appear from the context of the letter of Sir 
William Howe which I have just cited and to which 
the reader is referred. At half-past seven, in the evening 
of the I St of December, the British advance appeared on 
the heights of the Raritan, pushing for the crossing place 
and then, and not till then, Washington determined to 
retreat west of the Delaware. During the day, for the 
advance from Elizabethtown was of course soon known, 
Washington had written to Livingston and sent his 
message to Reed who instantly on receiving it wrote 
to the President of Congress, retracting the resignation 
and announcing his intention at once to re-join the army^ 
which he did, for, on the 7th and 8th, we find him with 
Washington between Trenton and Princeton in adive 
duty. On the 7th, Reed wrote to Congress "we set 
out this morning for Princeton. In our way we met a 
messenger with the enclosed." On the 8th, Washington 
writes: "Colonel Reed will inform you of the intelligence 
which I first met with on the road from Trenton to 
Princeton," 

What braver or more manly course can be imagined, 
for, within ten days, the whole policy of the enemy have- 
ing been changed, the duty of American officers was 
changed too, and, instead of a winter campaign on the 
Raritan, with all its dull annoyances, in apprehension 



51 

or appreciation of which Mr. Reed resigned, there was 
to be an ad:ive advance by the enemy when the duties 
of every man were clear. On the first whisper of this, 
the resignation was withdrawn and the post of danger 
resumed, and resumed with so much zeal and activity 
that, as we know, on the 23d of December, Washington 
wrote a most confidential letter to Reed as to the attack 
on Trenton, and a month later, rebuke or no rebuke, — 
discontent or not, offered and pressed him to accept the 
command of the Cavalry. "I beg leave" he wrote "to 
recommend Colonel Reed to the command ot the horse 
as a person in my opinion in every way qualified; for he 
is extremely active and enterprising, many signal proofs 
of which he has given this campaign." On the 24th of 
May '77, Washington wrote to Colonel Moylan; "If 
Congress, have it not in contemplation to assign one of 
the brigadiers already appointed to that command, I shall 
assuredly place General Reed there ; as it is agreeable to 
my own recommendation and original design; and of 
this, please in my name, inform him. — I would have 
written to General Reed myself on this subject and other 
matters, but my extreme hurry will not permit me to do 
it fully, and therefore I decline it altogether. Be so 
obliging as to offer my best regards to him, and assure 
him I read his name in the appointment of Brigadiers 
with great pleasure." 



Thus disappears another malicious fiction. But Mr. 
Bancroft is not easily driven from the scent. Not satis- 
fied with defaming Mr. Reed, he pursues the women 
and children and has the incredible effrontery (audacity 
is too brave a word) to say that Mr. Reed meditating de- 
sertion voluntarily placed his wife (whose heroism extorts 
praise even from Bancroft) and little children as hostages 
in the enemy's hands. This infamous passage, for such 
I pronounce it, I give in Mr. Bancroft's words: — 

A patriot father, who loves his wife and children, would 
naturally place them in a time of danger where he could most 
certainly rejoin them without changing sides. Reed writes on 
the second that he will attend to his office "as soon as I have 
disposed of Mrs. Reed and my children." It was a matter of 
import in whose hands he would leave them, and he had a choice. 
Had he sent his wife and children in the ferry-boat across the 
river from Burlington to the Pennsylvania side, they would have 
been among the patriots. He chose to send Mrs. Reed and her 
family into a part of New Jersey where they remained, as 
VVilHam B. Reed expresses it, "literally in the possession of the 
enemy." Thus in December, 1776, Joseph Reed, having his 
choice of a place of refuge, placed, to use his own words, "a 
wife and four children in the enemy's hands. So soon as he had 
thus disposed of his wife and children, as hostages to the British, 
Reed repaired to the camp of Washington, and crossed the 
Delaware Avith the American army." 

When, in my memoir of Esther Reed, 1 spoke of her 
and her little children as being 'literally in the posses- 
sion of the enemy' I little dreamed that phrases, not 
perhaps strid:lv exadl, could be so perverted. When 



^3 

Mr. Reed in writing to Washington, on the 22nd of 
December 1776, spoke of his wife and four little children 
as 'in the enemy's hands' it never, we may assume, entered 
his mind that any censorious critic, of his own or a future 
day, would accuse him of intentionally putting his family 
as hostages in the enemy's hands and of the incredible 
stupidity or audacity of communicating the fact of having 
done so to his own commanding officer. Yet this is ex- 
actly what Mr. Bancroft accuses him of doing. It was 
on the 2nd of December, that Mr. Reed spoke of dis- 
posing of Mrs. Reed and her children. They were 
then at Burlington. Their ultimate place of refuge was 
at the little town or township of Evesham, seven or ten 
miles south-east of Burlington and on the edge of the 
pine forest of New Jersey. Lord Cornwallis and the 
Hessians had not made their dashing advance, and when 
they did, the objedlive point was Trenton and the upper 
passes of the Delaware. No place of greater apparent 
safety could have been selected than the edge of these 
forests into which no enemy could or would be willing 
to penetrate and from which an escape could be made 
at Cooper's ferry, now Camden, or even lower down, at 
Salem. It was the sudden advance of the Hessians into 
West Jersey, which threatened to cut off communication 
with these helpless fugitives. Writing of it to her bro- 
ther in England, Mrs. Reed says: "You cannot form 
any adequate idea of the scenes we have passed. Thank 



54 
God our apprehensions and fears have not been altogether 
realised, but they were sufficient. But one day's escape 
from an army of foreigners, and for several weeks within 
a few hours march of them, and since they have been 
driven back, we have understood they had planned a visit 
to our retreat. Nothing could be more distressing but 
the dreadful reality. But a kind and overruling Provi- 
dence preserved us from those dangers we feared, and 
our retreat has been safe and comfortable." 

It must indeed be a diseased imagination which can 
see in this state of facts the dark and despicable iniquity 
which Mr. Bancroft has conjured up. 

IV. THE LEE CORRESPONDENCE. 

It is with great repugnance that I recur to this well- 
worn topic and should not do so but for the new gloss 
which Mr. Bancroft now tries to put upon it. Writing 
on this subject in 1859, I had occasion to say, and I now 
repeat, that it has always seemed to me that this matter 
has been much exaggerated. ■•" Mr. Reed wrote to Lee, 
then at the heighth of his fame and fresh from his South- 
ern campaign, that Fort Washington had fallen in conse- 
quence of indecision on the part of the Commander-in- 
chief No one doubts now and no one doubted then 

* Correspondence with John C. Hamilton. Historical Magazine, 
December, 1866. 



55 
that, in this, he said the actual truth. Washington him- 
self said: ' Contradictory opinions caused a warfare and 
hesitation in my mind which ended in the loss of the 
Fort.' Without desiring to appeal from any fair though 
adverse judgment on the propriety or discretion of 
the Adjutant-General writing to Lee, I do most earnest- 
ly protest against Mr. Bancroft's exaggerated and malig- 
nant judgment that it was an 'intrigue' or a 'calumny.' 
It was neither. Nay further, if Washington was hurt, 
as he no doubt was, at the correspondence, let it be re- 
membered it was not Reed's letter but Lee's answer 
which he saw, and Lee's answer very much exaggerates 
what was written to him. There was nothing in Mr. 
Reed's letter about 'fatal indecision of mind, or ' stupid- 
ity' or 'want of personal courage' or decisive or inde- 
cisive blunderers' — or ' the curse ot indecision.' All 
these .were Lee's phrases and seemed to be the echoes of 
what Mr. Reed had said, and this, for a time, gave Wash- 
ington pain. He said it was the apparent " echo that 
hurt him." 

But Mr. Bancroft is not content with the common 
use made of this correspondence. He improves upon 
it, by making it the basis of a new accusation, and to 
this alone I direct my attention. He says that, when in 
March, 1777, Mr. Reed wrote to General Washington 
that he hoped to get from Lee, then a prisoner, a copy of 
his letter of 21st November, he "had at that time in his 



56 

possession a draft or copy of it," and as evidence of this, 
Bancroft cites Mr. Moore's ' Treason of Lee.' A more 
I mischievous imagining than this has not yet been ex- 

posed. In March, 1777, Mr. Reed said he had neither 
copy nor draft, in July, 1779, when Lee was at liberty, 
and open in his hostility both to Washington and Reed, 
writing pamphlets so violent that printers would not 
publish them, Mr. Reed repeated this denial and gave 
what, according to his recollection, was the purport of 
the letter. He made a mistake in saying it was written 
before the fall of Fort Washington which he certainly 
would not have done if he had the copy and the date 
before him. When I prepared my Biography, I was 
under the impression, and so stated, that the letter never 
was recovered in the life time of the writer, adding 
"among my papers is a copy attested by a Mr. Eustace." 
My judgment enlightened by more careful scrutiny of 
the document itself, and not a little by conference with 
the accomplished and intelligent author of *^The Treason 
of Lee,' is that I was mistaken and that Mr. Reed did 
recover a copy of the letter but not till long afterwards. 
Eustace, who attests my copy, was Major John Skey 
Eustace, once an Aid of Charles Lee, and in the autumn 
of 1779, on President Reed's staff when he took the 
field in the co-operative movement against New York. 
The probability is that Eustace furnished these copies, 
late in that year or in the next, to Mr, Reed. My 



57 

reasons for thinking Mr. Reed did at some time after- 
wards receive the copy is the very passage in the 'Treason 
of Lee' which Mr. Bancroft refers to, but which with his 
usual want of frankness he does not venture to quote. 
Mr. Moore says: 'The following letter is already famous 
in the history of that period. The copy J use has been 
corrected by a careful comparison with one "signed 
by Reed, and indorsed in his own hand.'" Fhe pas- 
sage in quotation marks is Mr. Tefft's the well known 
autograph collector now dead, and not Mr. Moore's. 
While, with some experience in this matter of compari- 
son of hands in ancient manuscripts, I suspend my judg- 
ment until I see the paper, I am quite willing to admit 
that it is quite probable the copy is ' endorsed' by 
Mr. Reed. If so, it settles the question as to recover- 
ing; the paper at some time, but neither Mr. Moore, nor 
Mr. TefFt, nor any one else except Mr. Bancroft, whose 
credulity where evil is to be imputed is excessive, ever 
said or meant to say that the copy was in Mr. Reed's 
possession on either occasion when he disavowed it, either 
to Washington in 1777, or to the public in 1779. If 
then, there is no proof whatever that Mr. Reed had the 
copy when he said he had not, ha\'e I not a right to sav 
that here, as ever)' where, Mr. Bancroft stands convicted 
of wanton and wilful defamation ? All this was for years 
under the scrutiny ot Washington's honest biographers, 
Marshall and Sparks, and Irviny;, and this infamy of 



58 

Mr. Reed eluded their pure and bright vision to be 
revealed to the darkened and oblique optics of Mr. 
Bancroft.* 

V. THE CADWALADER AND RUSH ACCUSATION. 

If reludiant to say a word on the subjed: 1 have just 
examined, I am still less inclined to re-open the dis- 
cussion of the charges which General Cadwalader and Dr. 
Rush made in 1783. But I have no choice; for not 
only do the supplementary strictures of the Bancroft 
'Essay' demand some notice, but new information has 
come into my hands which dutv to the cause of truth 
compels me to disclose. 

The after-discovered testimony is this : 

It will be recollected that in the Cadwalader pamphlet 
is a letter or certificate of Alexander Hamilton, dated 
in 1783, in Philadelphia, in which he says: "I cannot, 
however, with certainty remember more than this ; that 

" Not pretending to have produced, twenty years ago, a biographical 
work, free from mistakes, I do not hesitate to acknowledge that I was 
in error in ascribing to Lee the credit of the evacuation of New York 
[sland in 1776 (to prove which Mr. Bancroft devotes, not only a 
seftion of his Essay, but an elaborate note in his History [Vol. IX., po 
175.] but I affirm that such was the received opinion of every writer 
till the appearance of Mr. Moore's Lee-Traft in i860. From Mr. 
Moore, Bancroft derived his own knowledge on the subjeft, and yet, 
while ready enough to cite Mr. Moore when he has an aim of defama- 
tion, he has no word of acknowledgment of what is valuable, but on the 
contrary, claims it as his own. 



some time in the campaign of 1777, at Head-Quarters 
in this State, you mentioned to me and some other 
gentlemen of General Washington's family, in a confi- 
dential way, that at some period in '76, I think after the 
American army crossed the Delaware in its retreat, Mr. 
Reed had spoken to you in terms of great despondency 
resped:ing the American affairs, and had intimated that 
he thought it time for gentlemen to take care of them- 
selves, and that it was unwise any longer to follow the 
fortunes of a ruined cause, or something of a similar 
import." 

In commenting on this letter I certainly supposed 
that it was a faithful transcript of the original. I now 
know it is not, and that a material portion was, in print- 
ing, suppressed. This was done, not recently, but in 
1783. Instead of the original being 'that the matter 
was mentioned to me and other members of General 
Washington's family' it reads 'mentioned to me, Colonel 
Tilghman^ Colonel Harrison^ and other members of Gen- 
eral Washington's family.'"' This is most important, for 
in 1783 Robert H. Harrison and Tench Tilghmun 
were living, both of them residents of Maryland, and 
one of them within what may be described as a stone's 
throw of General Cadwalader's home on the Eastern 
Shore. 

* The italics are mine — to denote the suppressed words. 



6o 

Hamilton's letter, giving the names, is dated March, 
1 783. The pamphlet, as nearly as I can ascertain it, did 
not appear till April or May. In the interval, there was 
ample time to correspond with these gentlemen and find 
out what their recoUedlions were. I have no doubt they 
were applied to and as little, tVom the fad ot the sup- 
pression of their names, that their answer was — either 
that nothing of the kind occurred, or, what is quite as 
material in view of the gravity of the accusation, that 
they could remember nothing. But why were the names 
suppressed, and so suppressed that neither by asterisks 
nor blanks was the absence of words indicated?* Mr. 
Reed died without knowing of this alteration. Tilghman 
and Harrison were honourable men, free, as perhaps 
Hamilton was not, from the evil influence of Philadel- 
phia politics. If thev had been able to sustain the 
averment of Hamilton's letter, they would not have 



" When in the vear 1804, Doctor Rush and his fainilv begged that 
the remarks of Washington as to the anonymous letter to Patrick Henry 
should be omitted in the forthcoming ' Marshall's Washington,' the 
Chief-Justice said: "It is my wish that the words of the General 
which relate to the professions of Doctor Rush should not be published. 
At the same time it will be necessary, either by leaving a space with 
the usual marks, or bv placing inverted commas, or in some other way 
to denote some words are omitted. This is not to be disregarded." — 
MS. Letter, September 24, 1804. Again, on the 4th of Odober he 
said : " I have no objeftions to leaving out the words relating to Doctor 
Rush, provided it should be apparent that certain words are omitted." 
This is the only fair rule, but no one would imagine, reading Hamilton's 
letter as printed, that there was an omission or suppression. 



6i 

refused to do so. Mr. Reed had a right to know that 
they had declined to bear witness against him. He and 
those who have defended him since, were entitled to the 
assurance that letters and documents produced against 
him had not been altered. If 1 am wrong, and can be 
proved to be so by the production of the original Ham- 
ilton letter, I shall most gladly retrad; what I have said. 
As it is, I affirm the two, the original and printed letters, 
do not correspond. 

How this happened ; whether it was the result ot acci- 
dent (which is not probable) or design I .do not pretend to 
conjecture. My belief has always been that, behind Gen- 
eral Cadwalader, who was not an expert in controversy, 
and may be supposed to have been ignorant of the strict 
rule of literary ethics as to fidelity in quotation, were 
more than one artful and unscrupulous man determined 
at any sacrifice to destroy Mr. Reed, and quite capable 
of suppressing or altering or mutilating evidence written 
or oral. This alteration of Hamilton's letter I am 
willing to believe was made by others, though, ot course 
it was a great error in General Cadwalader and in Ham- 
ilton too, to acquiesce in it. Be this as it may, the un- 
altered letter supports Mr. Reed's case, and the altera- 
tion shows his accusers thought so.'"' 

* In a draft in my possession ot an unfinished Address to the public- 
dated August i6, 1783, Mr. Reed speaks of the Cadwalader pamphlet 
as "the joint production of the Rev. Doctor William Smith, Doctor 



62 

This alteration, by the suppression of words or 
sentences, of an original letter makes it important that 
in all cases where extrad:s are given, the context should 
be open to inspection. In General Cadwalader's pam- 
phlet, is the following passage from a letter written by 
Mr. Reed from Philadelphia, and dated the 25th of 
December, 1776, 11 o'clock a. m. : 

"General Putnam has determined to cross the river 
with as many men as he can colledl which he says will be 
about five hundred — he is now mustering them and 
endeavouring to get Proctor's company of artillery to 
go with them. I wait to know what success he meets 
with and the progress he makes, but at all events, I 
shall be with you this afternoon.""" 

It would conduce very much to the illustration ot this 
whole subject if the context of this letter were given. 
It was written at the crisis of affairs. If it confirm, 
as I do not in the least doubt it does, Mr. Reed's state- 
ment ot facts and contains his expressions of earnest- 
ness and zeal in the cause, it was due to him that the 
whole of it should have been given. That it contains 
nothing in corroboration of the charges against him. 



Benjamin Rush and General Cadvvalader," and adds " the authorship 
being boldlv assumed bv the latter." MS. 

' Cadwalader Pamphlet, p. 40. 



6,3 

may be inferred from the fact that it never to this day 
has been produced. 

On this vexed question, Mr. Bancroft adduces no new 
evidence. His 'note books' are barren. Although he 
claims to have once had in his possession Doctor Rush's 
'diaries,' and 'most private correspondence,' he, whose 
memory is so singularly tenacious of such things, recol- 
lects not a word of confirmation.'^' All he does in his 
'Essay' is (though he shrank from it in his History) 
to endorse the charge of disaffeftion, and to put on it 
the gloss which his perverse ingenuity suggests, and to 
which, hoping to make an end of it and him, I now call 
the reader's attention. 

On full consideration, I think it best to let Mr. Reed 
tell his own story, and to quote his personal narrative of 
the incidents on the Delaware in December, 1776. It is 
becoming a rare tradl now, for, while there have been half 
a dozen surreptitious reprints of the libel on his memory, 
his Defence has been reprinted but once in eighty-five 
years. In making the extrad:, I accept Mr. Bancroft's im- 
plied challenge where he says with that peculiar acrimony 
which the very name of Reed seems to excite, that "the 
pamphlet of Joseph Reed is his own accuser." I now 

* I do not believe this assertion of Mr. Bancroft that the Rush diary 
ever was in his * custodv.' He once, in our davs ot friendliness, told 
me it had been read to him, but that the Rush family were unwilling 
to parr with it or that it should be seen by any one. 



64 

give all of the pamphlet which relates to this chapter of 
events, throwing into notes, for which I beg the student's 
best attention, such comments as Mr. Bancroft and 
kindred critics render necessary. 

FROM MR. reed's PAMPHLET OF I782. 

" It is not necessary to enter into a particular detail of the |, 
proceedings of the army for the few days they lay at Trenton, 5 
The disastrous state of public affairs had by this time brought 
out a great body of the Militia of Pennsylvania ; when the feeble 
condition of our army obliged us to cross the Delaware, the 
militia were ordered to Bristol, and the remainder of the troops 
cantoned along the river so as to oppose any attempts to 
cross it. Tn everv stage of our progress, on every movement, 
the writer of these remarks was consulted either publicly or 
privately, and often both- From motives of special confidence 
he was ordered to Bristol, where General Cadwalader command- 
ed, and from that special confidence communications were made 
to him in preference even to the commanding officer, as the 
General's letter of the 23d of December, will evince.* 

* Not onlv is the address of this letter " To Joseph Reed or in hh 
absence to John Cadwalader" very significant, but its contents illustrate 
accurately the relations of the parties. Mr. Reed as Adjutant-General 
was Chief of Washington's staff on detached duty. He had been at 
Head Quarters and there had learned Washington's intentions to attack, 
though the precise time was not decided on. To him as of the staff, 
the letter was written referring to the attack as a thing known to both 
correspondents, and designating the time — ' to inform you that Christmas 
dav at night, one hour before dav is the time fixed upon for our attempt 
on Trenton.' ' He could not ripen matters sooner.' Mr. Reed never 
pretended that he was sent to be the virtual commander at Bristol' 
(Bancroft, Essay, p. 32 1. What his exact position was, Washington's 
letter shows. 

/ 

/ 



I 



65 

Though specially sent by General Washington for the ex- 
press purpose of assisting General Cadwalader (who, whatever 
his abilities were, had less experience of actual service), I was 
received with cool civility, and very few marks of private atten- 
tion; but at the same time consulted without reserve on our 
Military affairs. However, I rendered every service in my power ; 
and as intelligence was of the utmost importance both to General 
Washington and ourselves, in conjunction with Colonel Cox of 
New Jersey, every exertion in our power was made to procure it.* 

This we were enabled to effect through the medium of some 
persons of Burlington, with whom our residence had formed an 
interest. In the course of this business it was necessarv to pass 
frequently to that place. On one of these occasions the inhabitants 
applied to me for relief from the incursions of our troops, especial- 
ly the galleymen, who distressed them, without affording any 
advantage to us. As the Hessian patrols came daily to town, I 
observed it would be difficult and hardly reasonable to restrain 
our troops, unless the enemy would submit to the like restriction. 
It was then suggested, that such a proposition should be made 
to Count Donop, who commanded the British and Hessian 
troops ; and I wrote a few unsealed lines to that effect, which an 
inhabitant of Burlini^ton undertook to deliver. The whole 



* Washington's letters are filled with expressions of intense anxiety 
for detailed information as to the position of the enemy. Not only 
was the advance of the Hessians very successfullv disguised, but in a 
neighbourhood such as that of Burlington and Mount Holly where 
nearly all were disafFefted, much false intelligence was put in circulation. 
On the I 5th of December, Cadwalader at Bristol wrote to Washington, 
(Force, p. 1 230.) that if there were not more than 500 or 600 Hessians 
in Burlington he should attack them the next day. On the 15th Mr. 
Morris' diary shows that there was not a Hessian in Burlington, the 
place being in possession of the American flotilla-men. So cloudy and 
uncertain was intelligence of what was doing at this short a distance. 

9 



transaction was of a public nature, and in the presence of several 
gentlemen who had accompanied me from Bristol- 

The bearer of my letter found Count Donop on his march 
to the Black Horse, and brought back an open letter mentioning 
that circumstance, and that as soon as his situation would admit 
he would appoint a place of conference on the proposition. 
Having thus far complied with the desire of the inhabitants of 
Burlington, who are chiefly of a peaceable quiet chara6ler, and 
from their inoffensive conduct, as well as the services we were 
daily receiving from some of them, entitled to this office of kind- 
ness, I returned to Bristol : But that I may close this transaction 
without interrupting my narrative of events, I shall here observe, 
that I was informed a flag came into Burlington a few days after, 
with an open letter from Count Donop, appointing a place of 
conference, which was sent over to Bristol, and delivered to 
Gederal Cadwalader in my absence. The tide of American 
fortune soon after turned ; Count Donop retreated to Brunswick, 
and I never saw or heard from him afterwards. This instance 
of humanity has been repeatedly perverted into a criminal cor- 
respondence with the enemy, by the friends of those verv persons 
in whose favor it was exercised and propagated in a newspaper 
which derives its principal support from them.* 

* Bancroft's comment on this simple statement is hardly worthy of 
notice. The Morris diary fully confirms Mr. Reed's narrative and 
so far from Mr. Ellis speaking vaguely as to the object of his mission 
to Donop, he describes in detail the meeting at Mr. Kinsey's office 
where the letter was written, giving the names of those who were present. 
I am wholly at a loss to imagine what Mr. Bancroft means (p. 26.) by 
saving that Mr. Reed and his brother said or intimated that the first 
communication or suggestion came from Count Donop. No such 
idea was ever conveyed. The only authority for the notion that Mr. 
Reed said he acted by authority of Washington comes from the Hessian 
diary. There is no other trace of it. The neutralization of Burlington 
was a matter appropriate to Mr. Reed's functions as Chief oi Staff. It 



6? 

It was about this period that, perceiving our iMilitia gradually 
dissolving and those u^ho remained growing disheartened by a 
series of unfortunate events ; New Jersey in a great degree con- 
quered and submitted to the enemy ; the first of January, fast 
approaching which terminated the enlistment of a considerable 
number of troops ; and authorized by that confidence and freedom 
with which General Washington had ever treated me, I wrote 
him a long and cogent letter, the scope of which was to convince 
him that we could no longer with safety adhere to our defensive 
system, for which I had ever been an advocate, that the time 
was now come in which offensive operations must take place; 
that defeat would not have worse consequences than inactivity ; 
and that the enemy's detached situation, I apprehended, afforded 
a fair opportunity of striking a decisive blow.* 

It is not one of the least of the virtues of this excellent char- 
acter that his ears and mind are ever open to information and ad- 
vice, when properly conveyed, even from persons of much inferior 

did not affect Cadwalader's movements except to aid them. It was 
neither made known to Cadwalader nor concealed trom him. It came 
to his knowledge accidentally and he treated it quietly, as a matter of 
business with which no one was so well acquainted as Mr. Reed. 
Count Donop knew Reed was Washington's Adjutant-General, for he 
is so described in the diary more than once. The inference therefore 
that the neutralization experiment was * by authority' was most natural. 
* Mr. Bancroft says (p. 29.) that I write loosely in saying that no 
'protection' was granted without an antecedent oath. 'The Howes' 
says he * under this proclamation required no oath.' This is by no 
means certain. Mr. Force, a far more accurate writer than Bancroft 
says there was an oath (Force, p. 928.). General Cadwalader speaks 
of it as an oath (p. 20.). At all events there was a written Decla- 
ration to be subscribed antecedent to pardon or 'protection.' This 
is a record which, if it ever existed, exists still. Mr. Bancroft knows 
perfectly well Mr. Reed never took a protection. He does not 
dare to sav he did. He insinuates it. 



68 

rank to that I then held. In a short time after my letter was 
received, I was sent for to his quarters; where he, in the utmost 
confidence, communicated to me the outlines of the plan for 
attacking the post at Trenton and expressed strong desires that 
in the mean time the enemy's posts at Black Horse, &c., might 
be kept in alarm, if an actual attack could not be made, and re- 
quested that we would concert some such measure from Bristol. 
When I returned thither, the freest communications passed be- 
tween General Cadwalader and myself on this subject ; the result 
of which was, that I should go over to Mount Holly to Colonel 
Griffin, who commanded a small corps of Militia and volunteers, 
and had advanced to that place within a few miles of the enemy, 
and from whose acSlivity we expe6ted a vigorous co-operation. 
I accordingly went over under cover of the night, accompanied 
only by Colonel Cox. We found Colonel Griffin very much in- 
disposed, and the condition of his troops both in number, and 
effedlive equipments compared with those of the enemy, such 
as ,extinguished every hope from that quarter. We returned to 
Bristol at midnight, and on the very next day the enemy dis- 
lodged him with great ease; his corps soon after dissolved, and 
he returned to Philadelphia. This was the plan hinted at in 
General Washington's letter of the 23rd of December. 

At this juncture, the plan of attack on the Hessians at Tren- 
ton was completed and preparations made for carrying it into effciSl 
on the morning of the 26th of December ; when it was supposed 
that the festivity of the preceding day would make surprise more 
easy and conquest more certain. As soon as it was fully deter- 
mined. General Washington wrote me the letter of the 23rd of 
December which will certainly convey to every unprejudiced 
mind, a clear idea of the unbounded confidence reposed in my 
fidelity, at so critical a period, when the fate of America hung 
in most critical and awful suspense. This letter ot course I 
communicated to General Cadwalader; and as Colonel Griffin 



» 69 

had retired, and General Washington expressed such earnest de- 
sires that a diversion should be made for Count Donop, we con- 
cluded to engage General Putnam, then at Philadelphia, to attempt 
it by crossing at Cooper's Ferry, with the troops then daily 
coming in. A difficulty then presented, how we should make 
the communication to General Putnam, without entrusting this 
important secret farther than prudence and the General's strong 
injunction would warrant. After various suggestions General 
Cadwalader, with some apologies, proposed that I should go 
and enforce it with personal influence."^' 

I accordingly set out in the evening, and reached Philadelphia 
at midnight ; upon conference with General Putnam, he rep- 
resented the state of the militia, the general confusion which 
prevailed, his apprehensions of an insurrection in the city in his 
absence and many other circumstances in such strong terms, 
as convinced me that no assistance could be derived from him. 
I lay down for a few hours, and when the morning came, a 
number of gentlemen, among whom I particularly recollect 
Colonel Moylan, Mr. James Mease and Mr. R. Peters, came, 
and anxiously enquired into our situation and prospe6ls. They 
can tell whether despondency or animation, hope or apprehension 
most prevailed, and whether the language I held was not the very 
reverse "of despair ; the former may remember, that when urged 

* On this, Mr. Bancroft comments with more than common disin- 
genuousness ; indeed without a pretence at fairness. He says Mr. Reed's 
visit was not only unnecessary but had a sinister object, because 
Washington had sent * his own precise and full orders to Putnam.' 
(Essay, p, 33.). He cites for this the letter of the 25th (Force, 
1420.). If the reader will turn to the letter he will find there is not 
one word of truth in all this. Washington gave Putnam no orders, and 
no information as to what was to be attempted above. He 'recommend- 
ed' the removal of the public stores and that an olhcer should cross 
into New Jersey to prevent the people 'from submission.' But orders, 
he did not give. Mr. Bancroft seems unable to be accurate or truthful 
about anything. 



70 

to stay and partake of a social entertainment provided for the day, 
I declared my resolution that no consideration should prevent 
my return to the army immediately ; and that in a private con- 
versation I pressed him to do the same, lest he should lose a 
glorious opportunity to serve his country and distinguish himself, 
I was not at liberty to be perfectly explicit, but the hint was 
sufficient to a brave officer. Having been longer detained by 
General Putnam than I wished, it was evening when I reached 
Bristol, and found the troops paraded to march to Dunk's ferry, 
in order to cross at that place, and proceed to Mount Holly, 
where Count Donop then lay. This was part of the general 
plan of attack formed against the enemy's detached posts. Upon 
our arrival at the ferry, the advanced parties passed over 
without difficulty : but we soon found, that, by a strange 
inattention of our General to the tide and state of the river, the 
passage of the troops and artillery would be exceedingly difficult, 
if not impracticable ; with the change of the tide, the ice was 
cast up in such heaps on the Jersey shore, that a landing for men 
was scarcely practicable, for horses and cannon impossible. A 
single hour, which we might have enjoyed with equal convenience 
and equal risk, if proper precautions had been taken, made the 
difference of passing to a scene probably of equal glory with that 
of Trenton, or returning with mortification and disappointment 
to the village we had just left. The vigorous exertions of Major 
(now Colonel) Eyres, and the officers and men under his com- 
mand on the river did them much honour, and convinced every 
one, that had it been possible the passage would have been 
effected. For myself, anxious to fill up the part of this 
glorious plan assigned to us, and having often seen difficulties 
described as insuperable, which on trial had been found otherwise, 
I passed over with my horse to see and judge for myself. The 
difficulties I found in landing convinced me that the attempt to 
pass the army was vain, and these were soon heightened by a 
most violent storm of snow, rain and hail alternately, accompanied 
with a furious wind at North-East. I sent a message to General 



71 

Cadwalader, that the landing of horses and artillery was impos 
sible. Our great anxiety then was to repass the troops without 
alarming the enemy, who were within a few miles, which was 
not effected but with great hazard and infinite labour. Having 
seen the last man re-embarked, and finding it impracticable to 
repass the river with horses, I proceeded in company with 
another gentleman, who was in a like situation, before day to 
Burlington, where we remained in a kind of concealment, till the 
weather and other circumstances permitted us to join the troops 
again at Bristol. Here we all continued near thirty-six hours in 
great uncertainty, but with much anxiety for the event of the 
at Trenton which the sound of the cannon fully informed us 
attack had taken place at the time proposed." 

At this point, I interrupt Mr. Reed's personal nar- 
rative in order to put prominently in my text another 
of Mr. Bancroft's flagrant mis-statements. I give it in 
his own language : 

"The 'President's' grandson pretends that Reed returned 
from Burlington before the issue of the battle was known. Not 
so. The testimony is all the other way. The silence and the 
assertions of Reed are against him, as well as the testimony of 
Cadwalader. Reed asserts that he heard at Burlington the can- 
non of the battle of Trenton ; now there was but a very slight 
use of cannon on that occasion, and the cannon were of light 
calibre ; the wind was from the northeast, carrying the sound 
dire6lly away ; rain and sleet were falling ; and Trenton was 
twelve miles off."''' 



'•' Essay, p. 34. The distance to Trenton is little more than nine 
miles — not twelve. The direction of the wind, Bancroft gets from 
Mr. Reed's pamphlet. 



72 

Mr. Bancroft's meteorology and geography are as 
confused as his perceptions of truth. Mr. Reed does 
not say he heard the firing at Burlington. He says he 
heard it at Bristol, which enables us to determine 
the exad: time of his crossing the river and rejoining 
Cadwalader. But Mr. Bancroft affirms that no firing 
could be heard at either place. "There was" he says 
"very slight use of cannon and the wind was from the 
north-east carrying the sound direftly away." If the 
reader take a map of Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
and draw a line from Trenton to Bristol, he will find 
that they lie diredly in a South-West and North-East 
course from each other, and the North-East wind would 
bring the sound from Trenton to Bristol and Burlington; 
and, if he turn to printed documents which were 
before Mr. Bancroft when he wrote this stupendous 
untruth, he will see that General Cadwalader on 
the 26th wrote to Washington from Bristol : " A heavy 
firing was heard at this place." So much for Mr. Ban- 
croft's North-East wind. As to his artillery, we are told 
that the sound was of 'heavy' firing, and Sir William 
Howe in his despatch says: "At 6 a. m. the Rebels 
appeared in force with cannon, and without advancing, 
cannonaded the Hessians in their situation." "The 
heavy firing" says Cadwalader "lasted about an hour, 
and continued to moderate for three-quarters of an hour." 
Yet, when Mr. Reed says that ' the sound of cannon was 



73 

heard at Bristol,' Mr. Bancroft pronounces him un- 
worthy of beliet. One may be pardoned for wondering 
at malevolence so persistent and irrational. I resume 
Mr. Reed's narrative: 

''During this interval the impressions which had been made 
by our disappointment at Dunk's, the apparent necessity of keep- 
ing up the spirits of the troops which were hourly declining, 
the daily diminution of our numbers, and the hopes we had 
formed of General Washington's success, gave birth to a plan 
of crossing over into New Jersey a second time, and attacking 
some of the enemy's posts. Accordingly we marched on the 
morning of the 27th ; but experience having taught us to pay 
some attention to the tide and circumstances of landino-, a suit- 
able place was pointed out two miles above Bristol, and a prac- 
ticable time of tide sele61:ed. When part of the troops had 
crossed, and the remainder were ready to pass, we received an 
authentic account of the success at Trenton: to which was added 
the important circumstance, that the viiflorious troops with their 
prisoners had returned immediately to Pennsylvania, and had 
resumed their former cantonments on the banks of the Delaware. 
This immediately occasioned a division in our councils : many 
gentlemen were importunate to return, among whom was colonel 
Hitchcock who commanded the continental troops, and those 
gentlemen who possessed much more of the commanding officer's 
friendship than I could ever pretend to. My opinion, delivered 
with earnestness was to remain in New Jersey, and prosecute 
our plan, as one that in our circumstances, admitted of no alter- 
ation ; I urged the probability of General Washington's return, 
as soon as his troops were refreshed, and his prisoners disposed of; 
that our militia were dissatisfied at being so frequentlv called out 
to an appearance of action, and being as suddenly withdrawn, 
that with the river between us and Philadelphia, there would be 

less desertion, and perhaps more confidence in time of danger, 

10 



74 

as retreat was less practicable. Amidst this clash of opinions, 
perceiving General Cadwalader to hesitate, and fearing he would 
incline to an immediate return, as a middle course I proposed 
going to Burlington, from whence the troops might proceed to 
Bristol, or against the enemy as events or intelligence might di- 
rect. A letter seasonably received from my brother, at Burling- 
ton, who had been very useful to us in the article of intelligence, 
determined the doubtful point in favour of that place. This letter 
imported, that there was reason to believe that Count Donop had 
broke up his posts, and was retreating. Almost at the instant 
of determination, intelligence came that some of our people re- 
connoitering a wood through which we were to pass, had des- 
cried a party of the enemy evidently waiting for us, this had 
nearly reversed our new-formed design; dreading its operation in 
this way, and doubting the truth of the information, I requested 
the troops might keep their ground, and I would personally ex- 
plore those woods, which I did in company with Colonel Cox 
and Colonel Cowperthwait, the gentleman who had been with 
me the preceding evening at Burlington. My suspicions were 
justified; there was no enemy there. Intelligence was sent to 
General Cadwalader, and the troops moved on to Burlington, 
the two gentlemen proceeded with me towards the enemy's 
posts, v/hich we found had been precipitately abandoned the 
evening before, in consequence of orders from Count Donop. 
We then proceeded on to Bordentown, which had been evac- 
uated in the same manner; here Colonel Cowperthwait re- 
turned with intelligence of the enemy's retreat, and that it was 
accompanied with every mark of confusion* and fear. From 
Burlington we proceeded to Trenton, where we arrived about 
two o'clock in the morning, and found it unoccupied by troops 
of either party. I instantly despatched a messenger to General 
Washington, to inform him of the situation of New Jersey, of 
our having crossed the river, and submitted to his judgment the 
propriety of passing over his own troops, to pursue the flying 
enemy ; he approved my sentiments and conduct in a letter I re- 



75 

ceived from him the next morning, whicli in this length of time, 
is lost or mislaid. About twelve o'clock the advanced light 
troops came into Trenton, with directions to receive farther 
orders from me ; which were to pursue, harass the enemy, and 
if possible delay them till our main body came up; but they had 
advanced too far for successful pursuit. After very animated 
exertions, both by the Continental troops and militia, the enemy 
preserved an unbroken retreat to Brunswick. 

The Commander-in-Chief came into Trenton on the 29th 
December; on the 30th, the militia were ordered up from Cross- 
wicks to join the main army, in consequence of intelligence 
being received of a movement of the enemy from New Brunswick. 
The events of this critical interval, till we turned the rear of the 
British army, by our march to Princeton and Morristown, though 
of great importance in themselves, are not material to my present 
purpose. I shall therefore only say, that I doubt not the pen of 
some future military historian will do them justice, and describe 
them, as he justly may (under Providence) as decisive of the fate 
of America." 

Commenting on this modest and manly narrative, Mr. 
Bancroft, without a tittle of new evidence, with the con- 
sciousness that nearly a century has rolled by without 
evolving anything in support of the accusation which 
once rendered vindication necessary, with an air of superb 
and insolent assumption, says: 

''His pretence that he was specially sent by General Washing- 
ton for the express purpose of assisting General Cadvvalader is 
discredited by Cadwalader, and still more by Reed's own condu6t 
in being almost constantly absent from Bristol, and condu6ling 
himself as an officer at large. His despondency followed him 
from head-quarters to the camp at Bristol, and he said to the 



76 

commander of that post, whom he prctciuls he was commissioned 
to assist, " [ do not understand following the wretched remains 
of a broken army." Cadwalader was a man ol iniih and honor; 
his testimony on this occasion is supported by Reed's conduct, 
and by witnesses to similar words ; and it must be received as 
true beyond a (piestion."'*' 

The j)()sitivc denial of one of the 'advanced patriots' 
John Bayard, is not noticed. Mr. l>owcs Reed's affi- 
davit is sneered at as rambling, incoherent and untrust- 
worthy. Mr. I'dlis, the hearer of the letter to the 
Hessian Head-Quarters, is denounced on the strength 
of some evidence which never has heen, and I venture 
to say, never will he producetl ; and Colonel John C"ox, 
whose life, put)lic and private, was free from stain, who 
lived respedted, and over whose grave in tliis City, 
were written long ago hy an eminent man still living 
amongst us, words of merited lionour, is pronounced 
utterly unworthy of belief. f He is styled Reed's 'pur- 
gative witness.' • 

I j)ause for a moment on this defamation of C'olonel 
Cox, which, as characteristic, I give in liancroft's own 
words : 

"• Reed looked about for a witness in his behalf, and out of 
all men in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, Colonel John Cox, his 
most devoted friend, a man connected with him by marriage and 

* E.ssay, p. 24. 

"I' Clark's Record of Clirist Cliurch, p. 19. 



77 

bound to him by benefits received, was the man of his choice 
to clear him from the imputation. That witness makes his 
certificate where he is free from the perils of a cross-examination, 
and he shows himself most willing to appear on behalf of his 
friend. The accusation was that Reed had meditated defection -, 
and his witness deposes : " Mr. Reed never intimated, nor had 
the subscriber the least reason to suspect, he had any intention 
of abandoning the cause or arms of his country, to join those of 
the enemy." The question recurs again; and again he answers: 
*'The subscriber had frccjuent conversations with the said Mr. 
Reed during the time of our greatest difficulty and distress, in 
none of which did it ever appear to be the intention of the said 
Mr. Reed to abandon the cause of his country hy joining the 
enemy." Thus Reed loses his case by his own chosen witness, 
who expresses nothing at variance with the accusation. Reed is 
charged with the intention of defection, and the denial is that he 
did not mean to do so by taking up arms on the side of the 
enemy. This denial is a negative pregnant, and must be held 
not only to prove nothing in Reed's behalf, but to authorize the 
belief that the witness could not explicitly deny the charge. I 
have not the least reason to suspeil 'that Reed had any intention 
of abandoning the cause or arms of his country to join those 
of the enemy,' but only that he meditated the abandonment of 
the cause and arms of his country."* 

One reads such sophistry with amazement in contrast 
to Colonel Cox's direct and inartificial language: 

" The subscriber was on terms of the most unreserved intimacy 
with Mr. Reed and had frequent confidential conversations with 
him on the state of affairs which then wore the darkest appear- 
ance, in all which the said Mr. Reed never intimated, nor had 
the subscriber the least reason to suspedt he had any intention of 

* Essay, p. 35. ■ 



7« 

abandoning the cause or arms of his country, to join those of the 
enemy. * '■' * The subscriber had frequent conversations 
with A'lr. Reed during the time of our greatest difficulty and 
distress, in none of which did it ever appear to be the intention 
of Mr. Reed to abandon the cause of his country by joining the 
enemy, but, on the contrary, showed every disposition to oppose 
and counteract them, and the subscriber verily beHeves that had 
any such intention been formed by Mr. Reed, he would have 
communicated it to the subscriber ; that he never heard from Gen- 
eral Cadwalader of his entertaining any doubts, of Mr. Reed's 
attachment to or perseverance in the cause of America, or any 
opinion expressed by him that induced a belief that said*Cad- 
walader entertained other than a favourable one touching Mr. 
Reed's zeal or activity in the public service." 

Of course, as part of the process of slander on the 
dead, Mr. Bancroft falls back on Margaret Morris, thus: 

" It is a very remarkable fa61:, that in a diary kept by Mar- 
garet Morris, of Burlington, there is an entry of the testimony 
of a woman who said, she overheard Reed, when he took shelter 
in Burlington, on the morning of the 26th of December, 1776, 
avow to Colonel John Cox, who was in the same room with 
him, the purpose of setting off to the British camp. This testi- 
mony is not entirely to be rejected. "* 

In my 'Reply,' I passed by this 'Morris diary' 
matter cursorily as unworthy of notice, and allude to it 
now to show into what stupid mistakes grave 'historians' 
sometimes fall, and how valueless and deceptive tradi- 
tionary gossip may become. The passage in the Morris 

* * Essay,' p. 35. 



79 

diary, as reprinted in 1863 and now relied on by Ban- 
croft, is this: 

January 4, 1777 — We were told by a woman who lodged in 
the same room where General Reed and Colonel Cox took 
shelter when the battle of Trenton dispersed the Americans 
[j-zV], that they (Reed and Cox) had lain awake all night con- 
sulting together about the best means of securing themselves, 
and that they came to the determination of setting off next day 
as soon as it was light to the British camp, and joining them 
with all the men under their command [m-]. But when the 
morning came an express arrived [.f/V] with an account that the 
Americans had gained a great vi6lory. The English made to 
flee before the ragged American regiments.. This report put the 
rebel General and Colonel in high spirits, and they concluded to 
remain firm to the cause of America. They paid me a visit, 
and though in my heart I despised them, treated them civilly and 
was on the point of telling them their conversation the preceding 
night had been conveyed to me on the wings of the wind, but 
on second thought gave it up — though perhaps the time may 
come when thev may hear more about it. 

The reader, and possibly Mr. Bancroft who, with all 
his parade of *note books' is very apt to go astray, will 
be surprised to learn that in the original diary the name 
of Colonel Cox does not appear. It reads "General 
R. and Colonel C." — and the Colonel C. was not 'Cox,' 
but ' Cowperthwait' of Pennsylvania. This Mr. Reed 
stated in his pamphlet, in the extrad; I have given. The 
entry in the Morris diary is of the 4th of January, 1777 
and the woman who retails the story describes herself 
as 'lodging in the same room' with the rebel officers 



8o 

and listening to the unreserved conversation in which, in 
her presence, they announced their intentions to desert 
to the enemy. The whole story is on its face absurd. 
Colonel Cox was in no sense ^ particeps criminis' of Mr. 
Reed, though he was his friend and his witness. 

The transition is natural from disparagement of an 
honourable and high spirited man who defends Mr. Reed 
to praise of Doctor Rush who defames him. Here, how- 
ever Mr. Bancroft, in technical phrase, is ' estopped' from 
exaggerated panegyric : for writing of Doctor Rush, in 
his Ninth Volume, he had said: 

" While those who wished the General out of the way urged 
him to some rash enterprise, or, to feel the public pulse, sent 
abroad rumours that he was about to resign, Benjamin Rush in 
a letter to Patrick Henry represented the army of Washington 
as having no General at their head. * * * This communi- 
cation, to which Rush dared not sign his name, Patrick Henry 
in his scorn noticed only by sending it to Washington."* 

This was before Doctor Rush was needed as a witness 
ao-ainst Mr. Reed. The moment that became necessary, 
Mr. Bancroft adopts him, though in an awkward and 
guarded way. His praise is certainly peculiar: "As a 
physician ' he says' Rush inclined to powerful remedies 
and free use of the lancet, and in public life, he was eager 
for drastic measures.'"'' 

* Bancroft's History. Vol. IX., p. 401. 



What the meaning of this semi-technical jargon is, I 
am at a loss to imagine; but Mr, Bancroft gives more 
precision to his praise when he says Doctor Rush "aimed 
well.'' As I am dealing with Rush only as a witness, 
it may not be amiss to see how far he merits this praise, 
whether his aim be Reed or Washington or Doctor Ship- 
pen or Mr. Boudinot or the many targets, personal, pro- 
fessional, and political, of his secret or open defamation. 

He "aimed well" says Mr. Bancroft. They generally 
do w*ho shoot from ambush, and never was a poisoned 
arrow sent nearer the heart of Washington than that 
sped from Doctor Rush's bow, in the form of the 
anonymous letter to Patrick Henry. It was dated 
the I2th of January, 1778, and on the 2nd of February, 
Colonel Tilghman wrote from Head-quarters to Mr. 
Morris: 

" I have never seen any shock of ill fortune afFe6l the Gen- 
eral in the manner this dirty, underhand dealing has done. It 
hurts him the more because he cannot take notice of it without 
publishing to the world that the spirit of faction begins to work 
among us. It therefore behooves his friends to support him 
against the malicious attacks of those who can have no reason 
to wish his removal but a desire to fill his place. Although 
your business mav not admit of vour constant attendance upon 
Congress, I hope vou will have an eye towards what is doing 

* Essav. p. 34. 

11 



82 

there. If the General's condu6l is reprehensible, let those who 
think so make the charge and call him to account publicly be- 
fore that Body to whom he is amenable. But this method of 
calumniating behind the curtain ought to be held in detestation 
by all good men." 

Mr, Bancroft affirms that Washington "on a full 
knowledge of the worst" forgave Doctor Rush."-' On 
what authority this assertion is made I do not know, 
but I do know that, in 1794, seventeen years after the 
date of the anonymous letter, Washington wrote to 
Henry Lee: "Personally I have always respefted* and 
esteemed Mr. Henry; nay more, I have conceived my- 
self under obligations to him for the friendly manner in 
which he transmitted some insidious anonymous writings 
that were sent to him in the close of the year 1777, 
with a view to embark him in the opposition that 
was forming against me at that time."f This does not 
look like either forgetting or forgiving. It is incon- 
sistent with the accredited traditions of Philadelphia, 
and, if there is no other evidence of it than the 
mysterious diary, one may be excused for doubting 
about it, especially when we remember Rush's sneer 
at Washington, a few days after his death, as the "Old 
Fox" — a- sneer which could hardly have come from one 
who, having done grievous wrongs, had been generous- 

* • Essay,' p. 31. 

f Writings of Washington, Vol. X., p. 431, 



83 

ly forgiven. Doctor Rush's animosities however were 
rarely buried in the graves of his enemies or his 
victims. In 1789 and 1790, four and five years after 
Mr. Reed's death, he wrote to John Adams le'tter after 
letter, (copies of which are now before me,) filled with 
the most virulent denunciation of Mr. Reed, the accident- 
al perusal of which has more than ever satisfied me that 
I was and am (for 1 reiterate it on full reconsideration) 
entirely right in the judgment I expressed, that Rush was 
Mr. Reed's worst enemy, as he was Washington's, and 
where his passions or prejudices were excited, as they 
always were against Mr. Reed, an unscrupulous and 
and untrustworthy man. It is my clear conviction, and 
this must be my excuse for giving such prominence to 
Doctor Rush, that but for him, the painful controversy 
with General Cadwalader which has, by busy hands, been 
kept an open and festering sore for nearly a centurv, 
never would have taken place. Of the value of 
Doctor Rush's testimony, I said in my ' Reply' all that 
was needed, and Mr. Bancroft is not wrong in his state- 
ment that I had no alternative but "to impeach the 
veracity of Rush." How far I have succeeded, the 
candid reader must judge. I drop the subject now, 
waiting patiently for the day when the 'diaries' and 'note 
books' which Mr. Bancroft says he once so much enjoyed, 
shall see the light.''' 

* I have some hesitation in noticing a publication by a member of 
Doctor Rush's family elicited h\ mv 'Replv,' but as it is in print and not 



84 

VI. THE CAMPAIGNS OF I777 AND I778, FROM PRINCE- 
TON TO MONMOUTH. 

The chapter of calumny as to Trenton and its acces- 
sories being closed, I turn to a period of Mr. Reed's 
life which the new writers of ' history' studiously ignore, 
— the campaigns of 1777 and 1778, from Princeton to 
Monmouth. On the threshold of this, Mr. Bancroft 
falls into a strange mistake : 

" William B. Reed, in his late pamphlet, seeks to renew the 
exploded idea that the movement on Trenton was of the sug- 
gestion of his grandfather, and to support that claim, from a 
speech delivered by a lawyer in court thirty-three years after the 
event, he quotes an allusion to an opinion of Mifflin, as of one 
who, at the time, was a member of the council of war. Now 
all this falls to the ground ; for Mifflin, at the time of the 
Trenton affair, was not a member of the council of war, having 
been absent from camp then and for weeks before, so that of 
himself he knew nothing about the matter."* 

If the reader will refer to my 'Reply,' he will find 
that Mr. Ingersoll ' the lawyer in court' as Bancroft 
describes him, did not say a word as to the * movement 
on Trenton.' He said, on the authority of General 
Mifflin, that Washington's manoeuvre 'by which the 
fruits of a former vidory were secured and a second 

* Essay, p. 56. 

anonymous, I simply note the fact that there is such a thing. It is very 
scurrilous and very silly. It was printed originally in London, and 
reprinted in Philadelphia, of course. 



85 

attained' at Princeton, was of Mr. Reed's sug- 
gestion.''' And this even Mr. Bancroft is ashamed to 
deny. 

Mr. Reed was in service while there was danger and 
exposure and at home when there was an intermission 
of a6tive military movement, as when the armies went 
into winter quarters. He was with Washington during 
the critical portion of the siege of Boston in 1775. 
He never left his side from the landing of the enemy 
on Staten Island in 1776 till the retreat across the Hack- 
ensack. He resigned his staff appointment when he 
thought the year's campaign was over. He resumed it 
when the enemy advanced and was among the first, if 
not the first, to lead the way in the aggressive movement 
in January, 1777. 

Of this portion of his life, I said nothing in my 'Re- 
ply' because there was and could be no controversy about 
it, and I refer to it now only because of the new dis- 
paragement which Mr. Bancroft has attempted in his 
* Essay.' 

Born in Trenton and educated at Princeton, familiar 
with every road and path between them (for West Jersey 
was a wooded, broken country then and bridges were few 
and fords doubtful) Mr. Reed had the local knowledge 

''■■■ Reply, p. 93. 



86 

which qualified him to be a guide, and General Mifflin's 
testimony was not needed to justify me in claiming some 
of the merit of the advance on Princeton. We know 
of his hurried letter to Putnam at midnight of the 2d 
of January, and of his capturing with a squad of the 
first City Troop, the British picket on the back road/'' 
The letters published in my 'Reply' show his adivity 
during the whole period till Washington went into camp 
at Morristown. I am tempted, however, to add one, 
never before in print, for which I am indebted to a kind 
friend, Mr. Thomas C. Amory of Boston, one of the 
^grandsons' whom Mr. Bancroft's slanders have roused 
to controversy, and who has done his work of vindication 
thoroughly and well : 



* East side of Trenton Creek, 

yanuary zd, 1777, 12 o'clock at night. 



Dear General Putnam 



The enemy advanced upon us to-day. We came to the east side of 
I the creek or river which runs through Trenton, when it was resolved 
to make a forced march and attack the enemy in Princeton. In order 
to do this with the greatest security, our baggage was sent off to Burling- 
ton. His Excellency begs you will march immediately forward with 
all the force you can colleft to Crosswicks where you will find a very 
advantageous post ; your advanced party at Allentown. You will also 
send a good guard for our baggage wherever it may be. Let us hear 
from you as often as possible. We shall do the same by you. 

Yours, 

J. Reed. 



ON Raritan River, 



yanuary lO, 1777, \ o'clock^ P. AI. 
My Dear General : 

I just now have advices from Amboy. The person left it yes- 
terday between II and 12, they called their numbers 4000, but 
thinks there were but 2000 ; no intrenchments there. He turned 
off at Bonham's town — saw no troops on the road nor there, but 
heard there were looo Highlanders at Piscataquay. There are 
some small vessels which lay at Amboy when this person went 
into it (last Sunday). These vessels received the baggage of some 
Hessian regiments who they said were going to York Island 
where they expected an attack. That a number of Hessians 
(he does not know how many) went on board while he was there 
and remained there when he came away. That a number of 
waggons were discharging, while he was lodging there, their 
baggage at the houses in town. He had since heard that all the 
wao;£ons were discharged except four to each regiment. He 
heard the major say that next spring they would march through 
the country. He was present when an officer came to Colonel 
Maud to inquire what should be done with the baggage and how 
they stood about quarters : he said he did not know ; nothing was 
determined. The officer asked if the baggage should go to New 
York ; the Colonel said no, it should go over to Staten Island 
he expected ; and there it would be safe. On Wednesday this 
person saw a number of waggons going to Brunswick for bag- 
gage. 

There is a o-ieat scarcity of fuel at Amboy for a considerable 
distance round. Gen. Howe is yet at New York. Hay was 
very [illegible] when this person first came to Amboy, but very 
scarce when he came away. From their conversation they 
seemed to think they could do nothing this winter, but in the 
spring would have a large reinforcement. 



He thinks there was a scarcity of provisions among them/ 
He met horses loaded with hay going from Woodbridge to Am- 
boy. He also met about 20 waggons loaded with wood going 
into town. A great many men lay out in the open air, there 
not being sufficient covering. 

Their picket from Amboy lies about 2 miles from town, 
where that road falls into the great Post road. The light horse 
patrol at night and come in in the morning in considerable par- 
ties. This person is of opinion that a few light horse might do 
them great mischief on the road between Bonham town and Am- 
boy which is very unguarded. There has been another fire at 
Amboy which burnt three houses. He observed their horses 
both baggage and artillerv, they were very poor, in no condition 
for a journev. 

I now have a person with me who left Brunswick last evening 
at sunset'. He says that the enemy have built two redoubts at 
Brunswick, one on the left side of the Post road, on a ridge 
between the woods and French's barn, the other on the right of 
the road as you go into town, about half-way between the 
fork of the road which goes to the lower end of the town and 
the barracks. He does not think there are looo men in the 
town, all Hessians. They have twelve field pieces on the heights 
near the barracks. Provisions very scarce among them ; no hay 
but salt hay. He thinks they are in no condition for a march, 
their horses being in very poor condition. He saw Skinner, 
Cochran, &c., who were very inquisitive about the state of our 
army, its numbers, &c. He told them our army was 8000 
men. Skinner said we will give them a brush. They keep 
no guards in the day but at a small distance from the town. 
From their conversation, finds them in great confusion and appre- 
hension of an attack from us which thev say will be a sudden one. 
This person thinks they mean to stand their ground at Bruns- 
wick and Amboy but not proceed further till Spring when they 
said they would have reinforcements. 



89 

Mr. Frelinghuysen sent this person in and said he should 
wait on your Excellency to-day so that I need not be more par- 
ticular, having given you the substance of his information. 

I should be glad Col. Butler might come as soon as he can. 
I have heard nothing of him as yet. This person says that Skin- 
ner inquired very particularly after me and said perhaps they might 
serve me as they did Lee. 1 shall write you as soon as I get 
further information, and am, 
, Dear Sir, 

Yours respectfully and affectionately, 

J. Reed. 

P. S. As my present station would take Col. Butler's party 
too far from the road which I think he ought to keep, I left di- 
rections for one hundred of his men to join Col. Wines for the 
above purpose — the other 50 to be with me. 

Mr. Reed remained with the army till Washington 
went into late Winter Quarters about the middle of Jan- 
uary, 1777, and Mr. Bancroft has not a word to 
say, either in the 'History' or the 'Essay' except one 
of his habitual flings at Mr. Reed's never resuming his 
post as Adjutant-General, which is simply untrue.''"' In 
July, Sir William Howe sailed for the Chesapeake, or, 
in Mr. Bancroft's peculiar phraseology, went "laveering 
against the stiff, Southerly winds of the season" and on 
the 25th of August landed at the Head of Elk. Then 
began in earnest the campaign of '77-78. In every 
aftion except Brandywine, as to which I have no evi- 

* Pennsylvania Archives, 1776— 7, p. 157. 

12 



go 

dence, Mr, Reed was engaged as a volunteer, generally 
in companionship with Cadwalader. As to this, I appeal 
from Mr, Bancroft's persistent and prejudiced silence, 
to the original documents printed in my biography and 
especially to the private correspondence with Thomas 
Wharton, the first President of Pennsylvania, a man 
whose every impulse was ot loyalty to his State and 
country, who died too soon for his reputation, leaving to 
his children and his grandchildren, one of whom I may 
be permitted to speak of as among my dearest and nearest 
friends, an inheritance which Mr, Bancroft dare not 
question but as to which he is of course silent. 

Reed and Cadwalader were together at Germantown on 
the 3d of October 1777; and here I must follow Mr. 
Bancroft into one of the crannies from which he shoots 
his venom, this time directed rather at me than my an- 
cestor. 

At Germantown, when the divisions under the command of 
Sullivan and Wayne passed Chew's house without delay, and 
Washington, after masking Chew's house with a single regiment, 
followed with the reserve, and continued during the action on 
the edge of battle, the "President's" p;randson will have 
it that Washington and his staff remained near Chew's house, 
and gives a statement that the halt was persisted in against the 
advice of Joseph Reed. Now there exists no evidence that Reed, 
who was at that time not in the army, was present ; and further, 
Sullivan's contemporary account, with which the biographer was 



9^ 

familiar, places Washington in the heat of the cngagcniciu at 
the front.* 



There arc In this fvo specific untruths, ist: I'hat 
there is no evidence that Mr. Reed was present at German- 
town, and 2nd: That I, in writing of it, 'will have it' 
that the halt at Chew's House was 'persisted in against 
his advice.' These are easily disposed of: Mr, Reed in 
his pamphlet of 1782 says, and General Cadwalader 
neither attempted nor desired to contradict it: "At the 
battle of Germantown we fought by each other's side;" 
and Graydon, whom Bancroft has described as 'no mean 
authority,' in his Memoirs, says Reed was there. So, 
too, Gordon. Nor indeed was it ever questioned till 
this day of doubt and calumny — this short eclipse of 
truth by Bancroft. As to my claiming undue and es- 
pecial merit, if the reader will look at the few words 
which I gave to this matter and how cautiously I referred 
to it, he will see how pitifully unjust the aspersion is. 
In Gordon's History, I found a positive statement, 
given rather dramatically, that Mr. Reed gave the coun- 
sel to pass Chew's house, and 1 said — and this is all: 
"Gordon attributes to General Reed the urgent advice 
to disregard the party in the house and to push on to 
the support of Sullivan and Wayne" — and 1 add '^In 
pamphlet published by Colonel Pickering in a contro- 

* Essay, p. 57. 



92 

versy with Governor James Sullivan, he questions this 
statement and says that when he returned to Washington 
General Reed was not present. The statement and the 
contradiction are given for what they are worth. If Mr. 
Graydon's anecdote be true Reed and Cadwalader were in 
advance and nearer Conway's brigade."''' Could I say less ? 

To Germantown succeeded the doubtful struggles (in 
every one of which Mr. Reed shared, his horse being 
killed under him at or near Edge Hill) on the lines 
round the present Northern limits of Philadelphia, and 
in the beautiful region on which I gaze as I pen these 
lines and which, in its fertile repose, is in contrast with 
ancient scenes of warfare here, and more recent and un- 
holy ones not far away. Through the whole of the 
autumn of 1777, ending in the dark days of Valley Forge, 
Reed was by the side of Washington. It was the time 
of the Cabal of which James Lovell and Samuel Adams 
of Massachusetts and Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania 
were the leading spirits at York Town. Not a word 
of this contrast, of these services, or of these dark 
designs do we find in Bancroft. 

"Pennsylvania," says he, ''was rent by tactions at the time 
of the battle of Brandywine, and it was, when these factions were 
at their height, that Reed, in September, 1777, was borne into 
Congress. "t 

* Life of Reed, Vol. I., p. 321, Graydon, p. 279, Gordon, Vol. 
II., p. 523. 

I Essay, p. 40. 



9J 

Once writing of Washington, Bancroft said in his 
ecstatic style that he was "borne towards Cambridge on 
the affectionate confidence of the people." ''' I do not 
imagine he means that Mr. Reed was thus 'borne' 
into civil life. The insinuation is just the other way. 
But he has not the candour to say, that although elected 
to Congress on the 14th of September, 1777, he never 
took his seat, thinking it a paramount duty though 
holding no rank and receiving no emolument, to remain 
in the field; nor did he enter Congress at all until a 
new election in December, and then he was 'borne in,' 
along with Franklin and Robert Morris and Roberdeau 
as colleagues. Of his career in Congress I note here, as a 
matter of pride to me, but no doubt, with Mr. Bancroft's 
present notions, of discredit with him that Mr. Reed was 
a signer of "The Articles of Confederation;" an In- 
strument, which now- a-days when centralism is so much 
in fashion, has poor justice done it. 

I return however, to Reed's military career, and Mr. 
Bancroft's comment on it, at once malignant and in- 
consistent. Down to this point of time 'timidity,' 'ir- 
i^olution,' 'pusillanimity' are imputed. In 1777, Mr. 
Reed is painted in new colours. 

" It was the fashion to court popularity by proposing rash 
measures. Reed in that winter advises Washington, whose army 

'■■■ Bancroft, Vol. Vllf., p. 34. 



94 

was in the most desperate condition, to leave Pennsylvania, and, 
without the supremacy on the water, to throw himself against New 
York; a system which if adopted, must have been followed by 
the ruin of Washington's fame, and imminent danger to the 
country. * 

Unlike Mr. Bancroft, I have not the advantage of 
having the counsel and assistance of 'General Von 
Moltke, the Chief of Prussian staff' or of 'the ablest 
officers of our Army,' and therefore refer to questions 
of strategy with great hesitation.f But in reading over 
the almost forgotten letter to which Mr. Bancroft here 
alludes, one cannot fail to be struck with its spirit, its 
manly energy and its ability. No one but a brave man, for 
he offered to take part in the movement, would have sug- 
gested such an enterprise. No one but an able man could 
so clearly and eloquently express his views. J Instantly 
on its receipt, Washington sent for Reed to camp 
whence he was accidentally absent, and where he arrived 
in time to take part in the last skirmish of the campaign, 
and it is a well known historical fact that the plan of a sud- 
den movement and attack on New York was for a long 
time cherished by the Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Ban- 
croft, of course, thinks Washington would have ruined 
himself had advice from such a source been taken. 



* Essay, p. 41. 

■(■ Preface to Vol. IX., p. 2. 

I Life of Reed Vol. I., p. 344. 



95 

ReeJ was at Valley Forge at Intervals attending as 
one of the Military Committee during the winter and 
Mr, Bancroft vouchsafes to his career in Congress the 
praise that : 

"His ahilit\', his acquaintance with the ainiy and his position 
as the representative of a central State which was the field of 
aiSlion, gave him consideration."* 

His military career, now nearly over, was adive to 
the last. The enemy retreated from Philadelphia on 
the iSth of June, 1778, and Washington was instantly 
in pursuit, crossing the Delaware by the upper ferries. 
Where Reed was, the following brief letter shows : 

MoYi.AN TO Washington. 

Trenton, June 23^/, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

General Reed was down with me in view of the encmv. He 
can therefore inform you of every thing material. I have or- 
dered Colonel White with a squadron of horse into the rear of 
the enemy whose van 1 believe to be at this time at Allentown. 
He will keep me constantly advised of what passes in the rear 
and the remainder of the horse will be engaged on their front 
and left flank. You may depend on having the earliest intelli- 
gence of their motions that I can with my own observation and 
of the officers under me can colle6t. 

I have the honour to be, 
Dear Sir, 
Yours, 

SlEPHI-N Mo'S LAN'. 
'^' Essa\ , p. 40. 



96 

He was with Cadwalader at Washington's side at 
Monmouth and shared the dangers and disappointment 
of that doubtful day. 

And now, American reader, student of History any- 
where, I confidently ask your judgment on this brief and 
modest military record, and on the unscrupulous and 
persistent attempt of Mr. Bancroft to misrepresent it. 
I cannot doubt what it will be. 

VII. THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS, IN I778. 

On this head of special calumny I preter being silent, 
reserving what I have to say till the Tenth Volume, with 
which the public is threatened, shall appear. It will 
cover these events and no doubt will contain new and 
elaborate defamation of Mr. Reed. It shall, at a pro- 
per time be met. Now is not the time. I note, in 
passing, that Mr. Bancroft's averment in his * Essay,' 
that the documents he cites came to him from Scotland 
from among the papers of Adam Ferguson, is I have 
reason to believe untrue.* They were procured in Scot- 
land for another gentleman who loaned them to Mr, 
Bancroft, and he used them without the least right to 
do so. This is one of his habits. He is of the gipsy 
race of writers. 

* Essay, p. 43. 



97 

VIII. THE TREASON TRIALS OF I77S. 

On this subjectl, dragged into inappropriate contro- 
versy, I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing 
my mature and reconsidered judgment. It may be 
agreeable to Mr. Bancroft to find that I agree with him 
and that it is a matter of regret with me, not merely that 
a drop of blood during the Revolution was shed upon 
the scaffold but that my ancestor had even a professional 
agency in bringing it about. Observation and experi- 
ence satisfy me that a lawyer steps down from the high 
level on which it ought to be his ambition to move, 
when he accepts a retainer from 'Government,' in a 
capital case, especially when a merely political offence is 
charged. ' Government,' afting through its own officers, 
is, or ought to be, strong enough. In this case however, 
Mr. Reed was stridly a public officer, the resolution of 
the Assembly and the choice of the Council making 
him one. He was employed for a vear at a stated 
salary and not specially for these cases. I am sorry that 
he had anything to do with them. And more, much 
more, do I regret that the penalties of the law of treason 
were enforced and that a scaffold for political offences 
was ever ere(^led. Tradition tells us that the execution 
of these unfortunate men resulted from the indiscreet 
condud: of some of their triends who defied the Execu- 

13 



98 

tive, at the head of which was George Bryan, a man of 
stern and rugged virtues, to bring them to punishment. 
Mr. Bancroft quotes a letter from the French Minister 
to his Court, refledling injuriously on Mr, Reed, and 
says it was upon this occasion that General Cadwalader 
first breathed his charge of ' disaffection.' This is not 
so. It was on the trial of Mr, William Hamilton, not 
of Carlisle and Roberts, that Cadwalader says he spoke 
of it. The two Quakers were executed without a word 
being said from this quarter. It was only when aristoc- 
ratic Philadelphia was threatened that remonstrance and 
counter-accusation were heard. It was when Arnold 
was the pet of Philadelphia 'fashion.' 

IX. PRESIDENT REEd's ADMINISTRATION. I778-I781. 

"Joseph Reed proved a most inefficient President."* 
With these words, Mr. Bancroft attempts to blur the 
record of three years of as anxious, devoted and thank- 
less service as any American public man ever performed. 
In proof of this I appeal, not to my own biography, 
which may be tinged by filial partiality but to the Leg- 
islative and Executive archives of Pennsylvania. They 
are in print now and easily accessible. More I cannot 
do, unless I were to re-write the history of my State. 
Speaking of the Executive trust which devolved on Mr. 
Reed and the Council in 1778, I long ago said, and now 

* Essay, p. 45. 



99 

repeat: "The exigencies of such a station cannot be 
measured by any standard of later days. The easy ad- 
ministration of an established government, with the 
slight irregularities that disturb its adion in peaceful 
times, has no cares or responsibilities to be compared 
with the perplexities, the wearing anxieties of the trust 
which a public station in times of revolution imposes. 
A corfimunity distradled by party spirit, which, though 
not inveterate, had the intensity of fresh malignity, an 
empty treasury, dilapidated credit, a currencv rapidly 
sinking through all the levels of depreciation to utter 
worthlessness, and, withal, an armed enemy, irritated by 
past discomfiture and ready at any moment to become 
the aggressor, were elements of the heavy burthen of re- 
sponsibility which, at the age of thirty-seven, Mr. Reed 
assumed. How he bore it — with what success he carried 
it through, how, in point of fact, he sacrificed his health 
and life in the public cause, I hope to be able to 
show."'-' Under this 'delusion,' if it be one, I wrote 
twenty years ago. Under this delusion, students of 
history have remained ever since, down to the mo- 
ment, when Mr. Bancroft, with his 'hand of glory' 
and his hazel wand, like the German impostor amid 
the ruins of St. Ruth, discovers that after all "Joseph 
Reed was a most inefficient President." 

* Life of Reed, Vol. II, p. 43. 



lOO 



He passes by, as if they did not exist, the details of 
Executive adlion and the Legislative policy which the 
Council initiated; the prosecution of Arnold; the 
relief of the army in 1779.; the defence of the fron- 
tiers, for the Siouxs and Cheyennes of that day were 
within less than two hundred miles of the Schuylkill, 
ravaging Bedford and Westmoreland counties; the 
successful and generous legislation as to the Proprie- 
tary estates; the foundation and endowment of the 
University ; the Abolition of Slavery, so gradual in 
its processes as to have no merit in the eyes of Mr. 
Bancroft and his political friends of this day and yet 
disturbing no social relations and offending no pre- 
judices; the judicial duties of the Executive, at one 
time presiding in the High Court of Errors, and at an- 
other, as Judge on an Impeachment; the two military 
expeditions in 1779 and 1780, at the head of which the 
President placed himself; and the suppression of the 
revolt of the Pennsylvania line in 1781. All this, 
Mr. Bancroft, of course, ignores. He finds it conve- 
nient to forget that Washington said to the President in 
the fullness of his gratitude: "Your intention of leading 
the militia is a circumstance honourable to yourself and 
flattering to me. The example alone would have its 
weight, but seconded by your knowledge of discipline, 
ability, activity and bravery, it cannot fail of happy ef- 
fects. Men are influenced greatly by the conduct of 



i^' 



:A:: 



lOl 

their superiors and particularly so, when thev have both 
their confidence and affection." He shuts his eyes to 
Wayne's glowing tribute to Mr. Reed in his letter of 
September, 1780; '*I am not unacquainted," he writes, 
"with the ungenerous insinuations thrown out with re- 
spect to your conduct, but am made happy by the 
disappointment some of these people have experienced 
on your arrival with so respectable a body of troops on 
this side the * Rubicon,' which has produced a convic- 
tion that the citizens of Pennsylvania are not tied down 
to any local spot, but, when occasion requires, will cheer- 
fully move to any point, and, in the eye of danger, meet 
every vicissitude under the conduct of a Governor in 
whose fortitude and abilities they can place the highest 
confidence." He conceals Henry Lee's affectionate tes- 
timony : " The period is at length arjfivcd when I must 
move for the Southern army. As we pass through the 
city, I mean to gratify myself with a personal adieu. 
But my feelings command me to separate with more 
solemnity. Therefore, I honour and pledge myself with 
wishing you in writing every public success and private 
felicity. I do it, not only from my individual attachment, 
but because I rate you as one of the instruments selected 
bv Providence to extricate this unhappy country." He 
does not allude to Richard Henry Lee's equally emphatic 
words: "The generous exertions of your State at the 
present great crisis do honour to the Commonwealth. 



I02 



I wish the example may inspire, as it ought, the rest of this 
sleeping Union." He ignores the three unanimous elec- 
tions to the Presidency of th'e Council, the cordial thanks 
of the Assembly, the Resolve that ' the Executive 
powers of the Government have been administered to 
the entire satisfaction of the Legislature and general con- 
tent of the good people of this State.'* He suppresses 
the unanimous thanks of Congress, in June 1780, to the 
Legislature and to the President and Supreme Exec- 
utive Council of the State of Pennsylvania. All this, I 
repeat, he suppresses, and has the effrontery (I regret to 
have to use the words so often) to cite mutilated passages 
of Greene's and Washington's letters, and two extracts, 
one in 1780, and one in 1782, from the gossip of French 
diplomatic agents in America, not caring to say, what is 
notorious, that Barbe Marbois, his chief witness, was 
hostile to the President in consequence of a difficulty 
between the Council and Holker the French Consul 
General, and was no doubt infected thoroughly with the 
venom of Philadelphia politics. Sir Guy Carleton's 
genuine letters, which Mr. Bancroft does not print, 
show that both French and British agents were very busy 
making mischief in Philadelphia.f 

* Penn'a Archives, p. 295. 

t De Marbois, later in life (^1815), when he was free from the local 
influence I have referred to, spoke of President Reed as * a man of in- 
tegrity and firmness' Complot d^ Arnold, p. 27. In October 1779, 
Doctor Rush writes to John Adams * I shall not fail oi waiting on the 



As to what is called Green's and Washington's testi- 
mony to Mr. Reed's inefficiency, a few words will dispose 
of it. 'Greene,' says Mr. Bancroft, *in a letter to 
Reed, uses these words: "The great man is con- 
founded at his situation but appears reserved and silent."* 
This is the whole of Bancroft's quotation which seems 
designed rather to inculpate Greene than Reed. It is 
from a letter of the former urging exertions for the sup- 
ply of the army, and I cannot do better than give Mr. 
Reed's reply, a private letter, never before in print, which 
shows in simple and unmistakeable form, the appalling 
difficulties of the situation. 

President Reed to General Greene. 

Philadelphia, May 23, 1780. 
Dear Sir: 

In the hurry of a very busy day and the express waiting I 
have only time to acknowledge vour two favours with the inclo- 
sure. As 1 have not time to use the latter, this letter is only to 
thank you for the hint you gave of a necessary exertion. It is 
made. Blaine has had everything he asked of us, except a mili- 
tary guard to force the people. This I do not love, and therefore, 
as well as because we had it not, this measure was omitted. Our 
commissioners, in conjunction with his, are searching for every 
beast, and can you eke out till thev arrive, I hope our difliculties 



Chevalier De La Luzerne and his Secretary. I am devoted to the French 
alliance.' The French letters quoted by Bancroft are redolent of Rush, 

* Essay, p. 45. 



I04 

will end in that article for this summer. To help you to do 
this, the people of the City have given up their salt provisions 
which the shallops are lading, and in short, public and private 
exertions have been strained. Many individuals have credit on 
this occasion, but none more than Air. Shell,* an Irish gentleman, 
brimful of Hibernian politics, who, in the meeting of the mer- 
chants, not only gave up his own stock, but animated others. 
This is the second time that we have borne our share of this 
kind of expedient within six months, and yet to be reproached is 
very hard and yet true. Permit me to give you a short sketch 
of our State compared with others. Out of 46 millions lent to 
Congress, 21 have been lent in Pennsylvania, and at least 16 by 
its inhabitants. There are now 20 millions due from the Staff 
and on certificates. There are above 10,000 rations daily is- 
sued in the State to [illegible) artificers, etc., exclusive of the 
supplies drawn by Congress, their boards, dependents, etc. 
Whence the waggons, horses, manufactures, etc., come, I need 
not inform you, nor the state of our troops in number, equip- 
ments, spirits, etc. What State has excelled in its clothing, its 
refreshments and kind attention to their future provision ; and yet 
it is become a fashion to pronounce us unprofitable servants. 
How discouraging ! I do assure you, upon my honour, that 
in accommodating the general service we have frequently scraped 
our Treasury so low, that myself and many others in public of- 
fice have borrowed money to go to market. In the distress for 
this article, we have given up our frontiers to desolation and ruin. 
Our whole time is devoted to the public service, and a great part 
to general concern. But we cannot perform impossibilities. 
We cannot create a medium of commerce. We cannot repair 
the numerous errors which from various causes have happened, 
and which are productive of present distress ; and it is necessary 
that ostensible blame should be laid on other shoulders. As soon 



* The manuscript is here defaced but this seems to be the name. 



as I can find time, I will write you particularly. In the interim 
assured that I every day see more cause to adhere to the sen- 
timent I expressed as to your line of conduct. 
I am with great esteem and regard 

my dear General your most obedient 

and faithful humble servant. 

J. Reed.* 

The fragments of Washington's letters are equally 
inconclusive of what Mr. Bancroft cites them for. They 
are from letters of the 28th of May and 4th of July 1780. 
From the former, he gives cunningly selected sentences 
and even these, as is his wont, for it seems to be an in- 
veterate habit, he mutilates. Washington writes to Mr. 
Reed. "I do not mean to make any insinuations un- 
favourable to the State of Pennsylvania. I am aware 
of the embarrassments the Government labours under, 
from the open opposition of one party and the under- 
hand intrigues of another." This Bancroft carefully 
suppresses, as well as Washington's closing words, not 
mere empty compliment to which he was not at all ad- 
di6ted; *'My sentiments for you, you are too well ac- 
quainted with to make it necessary to tell you (what 
they are.)" He was the 'affectionate' George Washing- 
ton. 

■■■' Mr. Morris as superintendent of Finances writing on the 28tli of 
August, 1781, to the Governor of Maryland, says: "I have not anv 
funds wherewith to purchase supplies ; no State in the Union has 
hitherto supplied us with money except Pennsvlvania." Diplomatic 
Correspondence, Vol. XI , p. ^60. 

14 



io6 

"I wish" this Mr. Bancroft quotes "the Legislature 
could be engaged to vest the Executive with plenipoten- 
tiary power. I should then expect everything from your 
abilities and zeal." On the 5th of June, Mr. Reed 
writes a letter, not quoted by Bancroft, from which I 
make this extract: 

"The vesting extraordinary powers in the Executive 
was not so well relished and it was too delicate a subjeft 
to be much pressed by me, especially, as there appeared 
some reluctance on this point and it is probable the 
House would have adjourned without touching upon 
it, had it not been so forcibly urged in your private 
letter. I was extremely embarrassed; I did not see any 
chance of its being done but by letting them know that 
it was deemed by you a matter not of mere importance 
but of indispensable necessity. This was done in a 
manner the most guarded and confidential, and had the 
desired effect, as they have vested the Executive with the 
power to declare Martial Law so far as they shall deem 
necessary, and which gives us the power of doing what 
may be necessary without attending to the ordinary forms 
of law. I have the pleasure to observe the measure is 
generally satisfactory ; and as we shall endeavour to ex- 
ercise it with prudence and moderation, I hope it may 
be productive of the good effedis expected from it."''' 

* Life of Reed, Vol. II., page 211. 



loy 

So hazardous was the step considered that no minute 
was made on the Journals. On the 20th, the Extraordi- 
nary Powers were announced, and, as the public and pri- 
vate correspondence of the time amply attests, every 
measure of coercion to the full extent of impressment 
of stores and transportation, was resorted to. What 
more should have been done, it is hard to say; conscrip- 
tion was very repulsive to a young democracy, and the 
Boston plan of importing foreigners under fictitious 
contracts and then forcing them to enlist was not dreamed 
of in those primitive times. 

On the 4th of July 1780, Washington wrote a letter 
of friendly urgency to Mr. Reed, a small portion of 
which is quoted in the * Essay' with this strange and in 
some respects unintelligible comment: 

"It is strange that any one should have been so misled by the 
sweets around the brim of this cup, as not to perceive the bit- 
terness of the potion commended to the lips of the "President." 
The letter is a severe rebuke, even more than a cry of distress, 
and proves that Washington had come to know Reed as one who 
was ever thinking more of himself than of his country." * 

A more flagrant misrepresentation than this, these 
prurient pages, (I use the word in its strict sense), do 
not exhibit — and why, when making the quotation, 
did Mr. Bancroft omit Washington's just appreciation 
of the peculiar difficulties of Mr. Reed's situation? 

* £s*iy, p. 47. 



io8 

" Nothing, my dear Sir, can be more delicate and 
critical than your situation." Nor does Mr. Bancroft 
venture to give Mr. Reed's answer which, tho' in his 
estimation 'enormously long,' furnishes more than one 
passage which a lover of truth and justice should 
be glad to quote. I can but refer the reader to it with 
the passing comment, to which the events of our own 
day give significance, that the Executive officer who pauses 
before he puts into action the fearful agencies known as 
* Martial Law ' should be free from criticism at the hands 
of lovers of Constitutional Liberty. Although Mr. 
Bancroft, in the ghastly illumination of these our times, 
finds grounds of censure in President Reed's conduct 
on this occasion, it is clear that Washington did not. 
On the i8th of October 1780, three months after * the 
bitter potion,' he wrote Mr. Reed a letter of warm 
affedion. Speaking of Arnold, he says: 

"The interest you take in my supposed escape and the man- 
ner in which you speak of it, claim my thanks as much as if he 
really had intended to involve my fate with that of the garrison, 
and I consider it a fresh proof of your affectionate regard for 
me." 

And again, on the 20th of November: 

" I cannot suffer myself to delay a moment in pronouncing 
that if Arnold, by the words in the letter to his wife, * I am trea- 
ted with the greatest politeness by General Washington and the 
officers of the Army, who bitterly execrate Mr. Reed and the 



I09 

Council for their villainous attempts to injure me,' meant to com- 
prehend me in the latter part of the expression, he asserted an 
absolute falsehood. Although you have done me the justice to 
disbelieve Arnold's assertion to his wife, a regard to my own feel- 
ings and chara6i:er claims a declaration of the falsehood of it 
from 

Dear Sir, your most obedient 

and affectionate 

George Washington.* 

In November 178 1, Mr. Reed's third term of office 
as President ended, and the Executive government, well 
organized after three years of severe trial, was handed 
over to Mr. Dickinson and the Anti-Constitutional 
party. It is no part of my duty to inquire how they 
administered it. Certain it is, that no such scandal fell 
on Mr. Reed's administration as did on that which suc- 
ceeded it, when a squad of mutinous soldiers literally 
drove Congress, at the point of the bayonet, out of 
Philadelphia; and the State Executive was powerless to 
prevent it. Neither have I a word now to say ot 1782 
and 1783, the years of the Cadwalader controversy, 
when, as appears from Mr. Bancroft's note books, 
profusely garnished with venomous trumpery, foreigners, 
influenced by the slanderous atmosphere around them, 
were scribbling home profuse calumny about American 
patriots. If, in Odober 1782, Luzerne wrote (what Ban- 
croft gladly copies) that Mr. Reed *a tombe dans I'avil- 

* VII. Sparks' Writings of Washington, p. z<^. 



no 

lisement, et parait charge de la haine et du mepris de la 
plupart de ces concitoyens,' let it be borne in mind that 
Greene, from the fresh battle fields of the South, wrote 
co-incidently : "I am vexed to see the ingratitude shown 
Governor Reed. It is enough to put one out of con- 
ceit of serving the public."* Let the American reader 
decide between the two witnesses. The cloud of un- 
popularity soon passed away. In 1784, the Constitu- 
tional party came again into power. Dod;or Franklin, 
the putative author of the hated Constitution of 1776, 
was chosen President, and Mr. Reed eleded to Congress. 
The next spring, he died and on his tomb these words 
were traced by the hand of one of the best and purest of 
Pennsylvania patriots, Washington's friend and coun- 
sellor, William Bradford: 

"At the call of his country 

Forsaking all private pursuits, he followed her 

Standard to the field of battle 

And by his wisdom in council and conduft in aftion 

Essentially promoted the Revolution in America. 

* Mr. Bancroft at page 49 of his 'Essay,' quotes a sentence from 
a letter from 'John Armstrong,' dated January, 1785, when Mr. Reed 
was upon his death-bed : ' It is cruel when we consider the bed of 
thorns he has sat upon for six long years and the many disappointments, 
civil and military, he has met with.' I have no doubt there is some 
fraud here. The elder Armstrong was a true friend of Mr. Reed. 
The younger Armstrong was 24 years of age. Which was it ? To 
whom was the letter written ? What was the 'cruelty ?' The context, 
suppressed by Bancroft, would be very material for it is clear from 
('Reed) being printed in brackets that something more was said of him. 



Ill 

Distinguished by his many public virtues 
He was on the ist of December, 1778 unanimously elected 
' President of the State. 

Amidst the most difficult and trying scenes his Administration 
Exhibited disinterested zeal firmness and decision. 

On the 5th of March 1785 

Too soon for his country and his friends he closed 

A life aftive useful glorious. 

These words of contemporary truth and of voluntary- 
disinterested praise cannot be obliterated by the cavils of 
Mr. George Bancroft. 



Conscious that the public, — or such portion of it as 
takes an interest in our history — may be wearied of the 
length to which this controversial discussion has gone, 
I hesitate to notice, in conclusion, one other of Mr. Ban- 
croft's assertions, and the more so, as it is personal to 
myself. It is the charge which I read with absolute 
amazement that, in my Biography of Reed, Washington 
was disparaged and calumniated ! 

In 1848, Mr. Bancroft volunteered to say to me that 
"mv volumes formed the most important contribution 
to American Revolutionary History which had been 
made for many years." 

In 1867, he says: "No book that I have ever read 
contains such libels on Washington's conduft and ability 
as the Biographv of Joseph Reed by his grandson. 



Ill 



At what precise period, in the long lapse of nineteen 
years, did this new light break upon Mr. Bancroft? It . 
may be, that the praise of 1848 was insincere, an empty 
compliment, which cost little and which ought not be 
taken as serious. Flattery and calumny are often kin- 
dred, and Mr. Bancroft, since his praise has become valu- 
less, is quite welcome to this solution of his inconsistency. 
It may be that he has changed his mind from conviction.' 
If so, I can only express my sincere regret that I was al- 
lowed for so many years to labour under the impression, 
deepened by continued and rather exuberant personal 
attentions, that the good opinion of my historical labours 
was still held. I am bound to meet the judgment which 
he now expresses — and I do so, with the decided and un- 
qualified assertion that the idea of disparaging Washing- 
ton never entered my mind. It was the inclination of 
my youth, when my book was written, to reverence al- 
most blindly his memory — and I can now, in the maturity 
or decline of life, say with clear conscientiousness that the 
more I study it the more perfect does his character 
appear. His memory is in much more danger, through 
a sort of reaction, from the stilted panegyric of writers 
like Mr. Bancroft who seem to think that if they 
praise Washington, they can safely slander everybody else. 
It has always seemed to me unfortunate that Virginia 
should have surrendered Washington to Massachusetts 
and her rhetoricians. His character fairly and thor- 



113 

Dughly studied defies cririeisin. I eertaiidv iie\er nie;iiir 
to make one. More e;iiulid and truthful judges th;in 
Mr. Baiieroft never said I did. No fair student of 
my hook will think I did. It is another of his evil 
imaginings. 

It is to he hoped — no one hojies it more than I — that 
this Rejoinder mav end eontroversy. iMiough, one 
would think, has been written. But, as I have said, Mr. 
Bancroft's 'History' is not et)neluded. The erteCf ot 
the criticisms he has evoked may be to make him ashamed 
of what he has done and resolve to write hereafter in a 
different spirit. I cannot sav 1 anticipate this. 11 is 
future slanders may therefore call foi- further exposuie. 
But the controversy, so far as it has gone, will not be 
fruitless if it juits the studious American puiiiic on 
its guard against an utterly untruthful writer of History. 

Kelati\'ely it is of little moment, beyoml the fam- 
ily circle becoming in mv case narrower aiui narrower 
in the lapse of time, whether an historical character is 
unduly exalted or disparaged. But there is no measur- 
in<: the mischief he does who, assuminii to write 
History, deliberately misstates written truth, weaves 
wretched tratlitionary gossij> into the record which he 
has falsifieti, mutilates and mistjuotes ilocumenls and 
sujipresses well attested facts when they come in conflict 



114 

with a theory of calumny. All this, Mr. Bancroft has. 
done, and is doing, and, I fear, till the consummation 
comes, will continue to do. My duty, it has been, in 
vindication of the memory of one who is dear to me,, 
to expose a part of the mischievous imposture which 
he 'presumes to call 'A History of the American 
Revolution.* 




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